07 Idle Hands
by Kyeian
Summary: -COMPLETE- One more round before the end, one more cog come round the bend, one more wrench to widen the crack...one more straw to break the camel's back. This story contains original characters. This is the seventh story of "Chance or Circumstance".
1. One

**One**

"They found another ten," Quatre muttered dryly as he moved into their tent.

Duo considered the words with interest as his lover moved over to kiss him, then smiled up at the...semi-blond.

A waft of cigarette smoke floated toward them on the wind, and Quatre turned to stare over his shoulder at the edge of the tent intently.

"That is _so_ not me," Trowa informed the man almost irritably as he moved in himself. "I'd totally have started and been happy with it, but..."

"But I'm not kissing a fuckin' ashtray," Blake agreed dryly. He smiled at Duo and Quatre as he ran a hand through his hair—there was enough sweat in that that the boy both wiped his hand off...and left hair standing.

Trowa grinned at the words, looking to Duo with interest.

"Why are you out here?" Duo demanded, finally lowering his legs. He'd been sitting back with his legs crossed on top of the table...and the maps, oops.

"You better _not_ start smoking," Quatre informed Trowa seriously.

"Quatre, Quatre, Quatre," Trowa moved around the table and up to the guy's back. Duo started to sit up faster as Trowa pulled the other to his chest by arms around the waist...and started whispering in his ear.

Oh. _That_ game.

Heero had some annoying tendencies...which included trying to entice Trowa into his and Matty's bed. Duo didn't know if he was even serious about it, but he'd done it several times. Those instances had bled into Trowa making free with Quatre and Jinli—though the latter was a total game.

Duo avoided meeting eyes as he looked around the pair to Blake. The young man had pulled a water-bottle from the cooler and had it pressed to his forehead.

"What?" Blake asked, blinking at Duo.

"What are you doing out here?" he repeated his earlier question as he patted down his pockets. He had a black vest over his t-shirt that was either to help keep him cooler or Kevlar. He hadn't decided what the logic would be if he were asked.

"Oh," Blake smiled, moving around to kick the chair beside Duo over. He'd had the fortunate instance of finding a very bright frog on the chair he'd chosen to sit on a few days before. One of the men from the camp had squawked at him not to touch it and went to gather a pair of gloves to do it. He'd lectured Blake about the thing the entire time he carefully took the creature out of the camp.

The kid had followed him to where he put the frog down and taken a ton of pictures with his phone from a safe distance. Duo would have been disgusted by the lecture, but Blake had this thing...he liked learning.

He was an odd kid.

Duo considered the floor as the guy picked the chair back up, then raised his eyebrows.

"What?" Blake muttered, sitting down. "Tisler was telling me all sorts of stuff about the bugs and things out here," he gestured toward the ground. "I don't want to become intimate with anything but Trowa."

Trowa was distracted from his game of trying to annoy Duo by his name and the word 'intimate' in close proximity, grinning at Blake.

"He's annoying," Quatre whispered, leaning down to kiss Duo again. "Keep your feet off the maps."

"You're a mother hen," Duo informed the guy happily, kissing him again. "I can vouch that you're not a woman, but you're really trying to prove me wrong."

Blake laughed at that.

"So," Duo pulled away to raise his eyebrows at the guy. He had forgotten the other was there—which was talent.

"What?" Blake gave him the same curious look that he had before.

Duo dropped his hands to his lap in exasperation.

"Oh!" Blake jumped slightly and laughed. "Matty wanted to see more frogs and stuff...so I just hid in Trowa's pocket when he got in the humvee."

Trowa rolled his eyes for the rest of their benefit. "For some reason, no one pointed out to me that he was _in_ the damn thing with us."

"How did you...miss it?" Duo asked skeptically.

"I got in and was talking to the colonel," he gestured off toward Blake's new teacher. "People got in behind me, and were giving me nervous looks...but no one asked why he was in the machine."

"That happens when you tear peoples' throats out," Quatre informed him...and it sounded like he was letting Trowa know something he may not have.

Trowa's eyes narrowed.

The thing was that it _was_ his fault. He'd started it off by snarling at the MP who were trying to do what they did to anyone they found in the hall after hours. He'd kept it up by taking Blake to a few meetings he shouldn't have been at. He outright refused to ask Blake to do the espousal thing with him...but that was a different topic. If anyone questioned Blake's right to stand at his side, they got the snarl or _the look_.

Duo'd gotten _the look_, and it was _creepy_. Trowa's ability to suspend his emotions entirely was bad enough without his ability to pick and choose which ones he _wanted_ to feel. Beyond that, Duo _knew_ that Trowa was intelligent...but the look showed no signs of _humanity_.

At least with the snarl you knew what to expect.

Things had gotten...interesting...after Duo'd finally lined up the information he'd wanted to from Illicit. He'd been having fun with Qing anyway, so he hadn't minded waiting for the various people to get him the lists he'd wanted. Actually, the day he'd left it—which was the day after he'd thought Jaden was attacking Clint—he'd also taken back a request for dismissal from Hoxha and the permit papers for the mercenary stuff.

He'd spent the first couple nights with Quatre in a different room than the others. His space-heart had needed to re-bond, because he'd really been about to tear Duo's eyes out for his evident stunt. Trowa and Blake had like, magically became a known couple about then, too. It went beyond them screwing...actually back to the conversation he'd had with Trowa before the man went for Heavyarms. Heero and Matty hadn't changed overly much, but Wufei's cuddling with Trowa hadn't entirely lessened.

All the rest of them but Heero had lost their damn minds. Matty was outright refusing to step into Brazil, though that determination was being shaken by curiosity. Colonel Tisler was stationed at the base-camp, and was telling Blake all about the jungle whenever he'd get the chance. Blake would bring phone-fulls of pictures back to base. He'd had a heartbreaking moment when he realized his memory was full, though. He'd had to _delete_ some of those pictures...though in the end Trowa'd stepped in and saved his lover the agonizing choice of missing pictures or having to delete them...by transferring them all to his laptop.

He had one of the most expensive laptops around, networked so deeply with the military's grid that if you killed his it'd probably cause permanent damage to _something_...the connections to the highest authorities around...and he put a few gigs of pictures onto it so his lover was happy.

Duo knew he'd have done the exact same thing if Quatre were in that sort of need...but just thinking of the sheer...power...in the damn machine and having watched Blake agonize...

Duo ran a hand through his own hair, sighing. There was nothing to be done about it. He was just grateful the pair didn't stare at each other longingly across a room or something.

Oh no, Blake didn't long, he plotted.

Duo considered the younger man's face without bringing attention to himself. Trowa had taken to strutting again, and Blake would just watch him. He'd follow him with his eyes, and every now and again something would reach his mouth—which was the water-bottle today...he had a cute mouth, the bow thing...

And, of course, Trowa had bruises. Little ones almost randomly across his arms, back, and chest...and his throat. He wasn't going shirtless so who knew how far down the youth's oral fixation went.

Duo realized he was still watching the kid's mouth and pulled his eyes away. The guy'd been...uh...the top of the water-bottle...it'd been distracting, and if anyone saw him watching...

Trowa smirked at him.

Ah hell.

Duo sighed to himself and looked back to the younger man. "You like being watched?"

Quatre smacked a hand to his face as Blake laughed in a naughty way that suggested Duo hadn't been as discreet as he'd assumed he was being.

The colonel moved up to the edge of the tent to look around at them—for Blake, actually. Blake bounced up, then bounced over to greet the man...who evidently had found something specifically to interest the youth. Blake squeaked and jumped back from the man's hands...and the man started laughing.

* * *

Matty moved around the feet of Demigod for probably the hundredth time. He had his left fingertips touching the machine...and a real want of finding blue face-paint and dragging Quatre through the base. There were the soldiers that Quatre had kept gravitating to before when he'd been...off. Those tended to wander around with him, but as close as the base was to Rabid's camp...it bothered Matty.

Jaden had taken him because he hadn't wanted Ranger to get Matty—and while Matty knew Ranger was in prison on 27, he couldn't help being antsy when faced with a soldier he hadn't seen before.

If Blake would stay at the base, it would be easier. They could wander around together and find the different departments of the base—but Colonel Tisler liked telling them about the different animals or insects around. His favorites were the grisly stories about a spider bite leading to amputation, or death by toxin three years later...and they found a lot of the things around the base-camp.

"You know you're going to go with him in the end," Heero noted, climbing out of the hole in Demigod's back he'd been perched in for a half hour. "So why don't you give over?"

"Because I didn't want to go to that camp in Brazil," Matty retorted. "They're _at_ the camp."

"Which is a literal camp now instead of a compound," Heero retorted. "You're bored out of your mind, and I don't want you going back to LA, come on," he leaned forward to kiss Matty. "Just take the next humvee that goes."

Matty frowned up at him a moment, then looked around again. The idea of a random humvee full of soldiers made him nervous, but he didn't want to dive into that nonsense when Heero was already worried about him.

"Hey, Jin," Heero muttered as the Asian man moved up to them.

"Yo," Jinli returned, considering Heero a moment, then gesturing toward the main hall over his shoulder as he looked to Matty. "I just watched you wander around that machine for a good quarter of a mile," he added. "And it melted _my_ brain. Come on."

"Come on?" Matty retorted, then blinked when the man pulled at his forearm and nodded once to Heero.

Matty didn't properly appreciate that Heero turned back to the machine without further comment.

"We found a gym," Wufei noted happily, moving from the wall to join the pair of them. "So we're going to use it."

"It's only obvious on every map we come across," Matty retorted, gesturing at an emergency exit map on the wall.

"Don't even pretend that we're talking about the obvious thing," Wufei retorted happily. He'd been recovering his humor, and was to the point that he used the nebulizer when he got up and didn't usually need it again after that.

"We don't know why you don't want to go into Brazil," Jinli added happily, "but we've been thinking..."

"...About some stuff Duo was saying," Wufei clarified a bit.

"About training and stuff," Jinli agreed.

"We're thinking that if you really don't want to go into Brazil..."

"There should be at least some points where there's someone here who can train you."

"I will when I'm here, or Jin," Wufei indicated the other. "And Trowa can..."

"I guess Quatre can't," Jin added, resting the fingertips over his heart as he went on. "But he's supposed to be teaching you that space-heart stuff, right?"

"But we figure Duo'll be game," Wufei agreed.

"So we were looking for somewhere more private with less random soldiers," Jin gestured at a group of men in a lounge.

"And this place has the set-up like our base—the officer's area."

"So we figured out how to get to it and why it's covered in dust," Jinli indicated a set of stairs in front of them.

"It doesn't have an elevator," Wufei agreed.

Matty grinned at that, nodding his agreement. He wasn't entirely sure about the training part, but the pair of them finishing each other's sentences was funny. It was one of the changes that had started since Wufei'd gotten better. He'd run around at random with Jin because Heero'd taken over Demigod's repair.

Between the pair of them, they probably had the base memorized.

"I was just thinking," Wufei started.

"We had this thought," Jin also started, then frowned at Wufei, who was frowning back at him.

"It's just," Wufei tried again.

"Wufei thinks..." Jinli had the same timing.

"Just let me say it," Wufei grumped.

"It doesn't matter who says it," Jinli retorted.

"Well, I'm saying it," Wufei informed him. "If you can rebuild your self-confidence..."

"If you know you have a secondary option," Jin was saying at the same time.

They glared at each other again.

Matty laughed at that, starting up the stairs. He imagined there was a level of tact Wufei was trying to employ, and chances were that Jin thought it was easier just to say the facts...or maybe the other way around.

"Proper training might help you deal with the phobia," Wufei said quickly.

"Why do you have to call it a phobia!" Jinli was offended, evidently, for Matty. "You could have just noted that if the situation requires it..."

"He can _get_ away, probably," Wufei retorted, giving Matty a brief look. "Trowa works with him on that sometimes...but you see him look at soldiers when they come up! He's always watching what they'll do!"

Jinli huffed at him, glancing at Matty.

"It's okay," Matty reassured the man. "It _is_ a phobia...it was Ranger who wanted to grab me, not Rabid."

"Gerrange," they both corrected easily.

Matty grinned slightly at that and slid his card into the reader for the door-lock.

"So we'll all go round-robin on teaching you," Wufei shrugged as they pushed into a tall room.

There were like, twenty-foot tall tinted windows on the outer wall, and the lights were all off—the shape of the top of the windows was vaguely amusing to Matty, because from the outside, those windows formed a sort of building center-piece. Aside from the wall the windows were on, the walls were lined with seven foot mirrors. There was workout equipment to one side, and a large area with mats...and a whole lot of dark empty space up to the ceiling. The ceiling slanted forward to reach the height of the outer window, though the tips of the windows protruded from the main structure. There were pipes up there...and pockets of utter blackness highlighted by the light that did shine in.

"Well," Matty said in a quiet voice as he considered the area. "I guess we know where my next nightmare is going to take place."

"It's just those pockets, honey," Jinli declared in a flamboyantly-gay sort of voice, flicking his wrist, "they make your rumpus look bumpus."

Matty started laughing.

Wufei groaned.

* * *

"Up...up...higher!"

Heero yawned as he moved into the gym area. Wufei's was the only voice he could hear, but he knew Matty had taken off with he and Jinli. Jin had shown up again in the hanger, asking if Heero wanted any help.

He blinked as he stopped, considering the slow motion kick he was watching.

"Heero." Wufei caught Matty's ankle as he said it, his eyes flicking to him.

Unfortunately, Matty didn't have the agility training to counterbalance being grabbed in the unfamiliar angle, and the youth croaked a protest.

"Oops!" Wufei laughed, moving the leg down...it had been nearly at his face.

"Well, he didn't hurt himself," Heero noted, considering his fallen boyfriend.

Matty smiled up at him, righting himself so he could sit on his rear and run a hand through his sweaty hair.

"You okay?" Heero muttered, moving closer to sit next to him.

"Just sore," Matty smiled slightly, leaning up to kiss Heero briefly. "And sweaty," he added, wiping at his face again irritably.

"He's doing good," Wufei noted happily. "I decided to touch back on basics with him and realized the only people who _know_ basics are the ones who were trained them."

"It was an epiphany," Matty noted, starting to laugh a little. "So that's what we started doing, and then I pointed out that I'd seen him kick higher than my head with power behind it."

"And he pointed out how fucking _lethal_ he is, didn't he?" Heero asked dryly, focusing on his friend.

"Yes, I _did_," Wufei retorted. "Funny thing, the kid thinks it's cool."

"You did _not_ just call me a kid," Matty noted, looking to him sharply. "I know you did _not_..."

"It's coming up on my birthday, kid," Wufei retorted. "Give me a break."

"What?" Matty asked blankly as he thought. "What is today?"

"The fourteenth," Wufei returned easily. "My birthday is the sixteenth."

"See, that's his oh-so-subtle warning to me," Heero informed his boyfriend happily, "to remind the others so no one forgets."

Wufei smirked at him.

"And you'll be twenty-three?" Matty asked curiously.

"Yep," Wufei smirked more. "I'm the oldest."

"Since my bio-signs don't suggest my birthday was early in the year," Heero agreed.

"Yes, which still puts you a year behind me," Wufei's tone was pointed enough that Matty realized this wasn't the first time they'd had this conversation.

Heero rolled his eyes and looked back to Matty. "They projected _me_ to be about fifteen right-off, no hesitation at all."

"Was there some?" Matty thought back. "With who?"

"Trowa, actually," Wufei shrugged. "He's probably closer to twenty-four. He'll never admit it, though."

"He was really bothered about it," Heero added. "When they were doing the tests and stuff for me and Duo it was just blatant fifteen. For him it was a kind of waffling. He was at the end of fifteen at the earliest...and probably a full-on sixteen. Whoever was doing it, though, muddied it up so bad that he was emotionally bothered by it. He wouldn't decide what _he_ thought for almost a month, and by that point I really think he was just..."

"He's admitted he just wanted to say a firm age when he was at that point," Wufei noted. "He said something about it...and you and Duo had no hesitations, if you think back. He just grabbed it and ran with it."

"I'm just curious why...that...Odin?" Matty glanced at Wufei briefly. "Why didn't he know your birth-date?"

Heero shrugged. "He might _have_. For what we were doing, it wasn't important. I didn't exactly play with a lot of other kids—the ones I did play with were like me. Birthdays were unimportant to us."

"What happened to them?" Matty asked blankly.

Heero shrugged indifferently. It had never been important to know, and he didn't remember what names they had anyway.

"We don't like talking about our pasts much," Wufei noted, his eyes wandering to the huge windows. "None of us. We were all fucked in the head, that's how we got pulled into this bullshit to begin with."

Matty sighed, wanting very much to lay on Heero. He was covered in sweat, though, and the notion didn't seem very sound.

"Jin needs to go home," Wufei noted quietly, still staring out the window. "I promised him that we'd go see everyone when we mopped this mess up..." he gestured toward the main of the base without looking around. "But we just made a bigger mess..." he sighed heavily and dropped backwards to stare up at the far-distant ceiling. "Since I promised him, we're going to go all over L-5."

Heero closed his eyes.

"It was...the memorial, wasn't it?" Matty hazarded. "The memorial was the issue?"

"Matty," Wufei said in a distant sort of tone. "My entire family disappeared, and I was _right_ there...I _**saw**_ it happen. I got to go in and talk to my mom...to Nataku's dad...to...so many people I'd known...and then poof," he gestured in front of himself like a ball exploding. "That was all there was to it."

Matty looked up to Heero uncertainly.

"All of fucking _space_ is the issue," Wufei noted, pushing himself up to glower at the younger male. He grinned, though, looking to Heero. "I made him forget I called him kid."

The younger male guffawed, swatting at Wufei's knee.

"Hey," Jinli muttered, bouncing happily into the room. "Trowa'n'em are almost in...like ten more minutes."

"Ooh," Matty tried to bounce up, but his muscles interrupted that by nearly tripping him. He laughed a little as Heero caught him by the hands, pushing off of those. "Wow..."

"You got a real workout," Jinli noted happily. "I'm sure your abdomen is in fine shape and all...but the rest of you..."

Heero laughed at that, not horribly surprised. He smacked Jinli's legs as Matty gave him a disbelieving look.

"Well, I mean...I gathered bits here and there," Jinli noted happily. "You totally like, throw Heero around, don't you?"

"_What?_" Matty demanded, embarrassment striking hard and fast as he looked down to his boyfriend. He was relieved to see Heero's own mild dismay.

"You forget about that?" Wufei asked pointedly, indicating the teen. "For all that I'd love my lover to throw me on the bed and attempt to exhaust me..."

"Shut-up!" Heero protested, flustered as he jumped at Wufei.

Wufei started laughing delightedly...and Jinli yanked Matty back.

The confused welter of emotions subsided slightly as Matty nearly fell over at the tug. His legs didn't seem able to support him properly...but that wasn't all there was to blink at.

Heero and Wufei were fighting.

It'd been an age since Heero'd properly sparred with Wufei. They normally had fun doing it, but Wufei'd been worked up by practicing with Matty. His endorphins were already in full effect...which in turn flushed Heero's adrenaline.

They moved across the mats, Heero giving ground willingly for now. He had to get into his proper flow before he could throw the Chinese man down...

"Come on," Jinli muttered, grabbing Matty around the waist and moving back toward the wall. "This has the look of a match to it..."

"And they're both trained," Matty noted quietly, considering his lover. The man obviously wasn't warmed up, but aside from that he wasn't doing bad at all.

"Oh!" Jinli flinched hard...as Wufei ducked a kick that would have _hurt_.

Wufei started laughing.

* * *

Trowa moved into the officer's gym curiously, considering the monstrous windows before noticing the mirrors. He'd heard this place had existed, but hadn't found it himself. Quatre had been telling him which directions to take on the halls.

"Hey!" Jinli greeted him happily, looking back to...the spectacle.

Wufei and Heero were fighting...or sparring. It was hard to tell which, really. Their t-shirts were thrown haphazardly on the mats in a way that made it obvious they'd been on at some point...and other than that...

Heero struck hard at Wufei's face, and Wufei blocked the motion...but missed the under hand one that followed, cursing vehemently as he turned away from the other male...his eyes were absolutely sparkling.

"They seem to be just getting started," Matty noted from where he was collapsed against one of the mirrors. "Where is everyone?"

"I'm here...hot-damn," Blake moved around Trowa with interest as he watched the two men exchanging a volley of kicks.

"You have no idea," Matty snickered. "Wufei was training me, and..." His cheeks flushed.

"I was just pointing out that your core-strength is probably in fine shape," Jinli noted nonchalantly.

Trowa snickered at that as Matty gave Blake a mildly upset look.

"I should work on my core strength, huh?" Blake muttered, dropping down next to his friend with a wicked grin.

"Sorry," Trowa noted, leaning against the wall beside him. "I can't help but take over."

Heero laughed a delightedly wicked laugh as he flipped backwards from Wufei, and Duo moved into the room with Quatre, giving the pair an interested look.

"Oh, so we're doing this again," Quatre grumbled.

"I'll take ya on," Trowa noted, meeting his eyes with a grin.

"Like I _want_ to fight you," Quatre snapped back.

"I've been _trying_ to annoy you," Trowa argued back. "Why do you think I keep _grabbing_ you? Shit, I should start grabbing Duo, I'd get a rise for that, I'm sure."

"Even if it was only mine," Duo retorted.

Trowa shrugged a vague agreement to that...it was, after all, a given.

* * *

"So they found ten more today," Quatre summed up to his friends and the various other leaders. It included Une by vid. "Out of those ten, five of them were claiming it was Deathscythe, not Wing Gundam...which probably means they saw the footage when Deathscythe's shield first shut down. Three of the rest were far too vague—like, it could have been a Leo or something just as well as a gundam. The last two had both seen a gundam, but one wasn't sure how long ago it'd been, and the other saw some of the practice runs before we got down here."

"So a fat wad of nothing," Trowa grumped, rocking back in his seat. "We took some more satellite pictures earlier. They're being compiled for printing downstairs. We'll get that looked at as soon as we can, but the cameraman didn't see anything that particularly got his attention." He shoved himself up, grabbing his laptop and taking it around to the projector board. "We have no news on...uh..." he blinked.

A titter went through the crowd, because there was a very large frog looking back at them from Trowa's desktop. It was a bright frog.

"Sorry," Trowa muttered, accessing his desktop images...to see a bunch more of those sort of pictures.

Duo snickered.

"My...boyfriend...has been..." Trowa didn't bother to finish the sentence as he started navigating through folders.

The rush that went through the room at 'boyfriend' was startled and interested. Trowa'd been decidedly straight before he decided Matty was cute.

Wufei rubbed at the bridge of his nose. He'd gotten similar reactions when he noted his espoused was on hand. The questions he'd gotten had been quiet and respectful...it was a fairly widely known fact that Wufei...had...been straight. Noting that it was his childhood best friend had made several women almost swoon at him. He was pretty sure he'd have gone into a sugar-coma if what he'd done was really as sweet as all that, though.

It was damn irritating to be known as espoused, because women wouldn't follow him home on accident...and even less on purpose.

He'd have to remedy that, he just hadn't figured out _how_ yet.

"You know what," Trowa muttered. "We can deal with the damn frog." He canceled out of the desktop options and opened his main file. "He'll be thrilled, I'm sure...anyway, here's our current set-up." A satellite map appeared on the screen with a straggled octagon around it. "This is what we've held onto...and this," he clicked a button and a second set of lines appeared. "This is what Illicit is holding...they don't have as much weaponry as they'd like, I think. I attempted to get ahold of President Timorre...their supreme ruler...but he was out on patrols with his men."

Heero gave Trowa a severely level look, but his dislike of the man wasn't the sort that led to discrediting him. He just wanted to beat his face in or something.

"Are we really going to give that ship supplies?" one of the men in the room asked blankly. "They defected from the defectors...doesn't that make them unreliable entirely? At least the ones who stayed..."

"Stop talking before you make a fool of yourself," Trowa suggested, looking around until he found the guy. "President Timorre was against all the methods of Gerrange from the start, but Gerrange had the reins and Gerrange's advisors ignored him. The president could evidently tell how low stores were getting on the base, and probably knew Gerrange was intending to start the raids. I'm almost certain that was why he defected from them."

This was the agreed upon theory they all decided to throw the others. They knew that Timorre had left because he was tired of dealing with the mad-man at the helm. He'd left in a way that actually made this protester sound in the know...but they needed Timorre's men to hold those towns they did have, and that meant getting their permits certified. They could all talk a good game when they wanted to, so they'd agreed on what image to give people. Trowa's position as spy extraordinaire gave him a good foothold of credibility to announce he was sure why someone he didn't know had done what they had...so the comment passed un-challenged.

"At any rate, I was looking at our lines today, and considering what the...uh...man...from Illicit was telling me—I met up with one of their councilmen around noon. We supped over cold tea and biscuits."

Duo snorted.

Trowa snickered, glancing up at him—whatever the hell he was looking at on his screen distracted him again. The cold tea and cookies thing was him playing for time. "Huh."

"What?" Wufei asked. "What popped up?"

"A stiffy, shut up."

Wufei snickered as other people in the room exchanged looks.

"Apologies, Une," Duo called over to her screen. "Sometimes our _decorum_ escapes us."

Trowa actually laughed at that, looking up to Duo to smile brightly at him...and went back to whatever he was doing.

"Uh...right," Heero stood. "I'll do my bit, then. The part for Demigod was installed, but I've been running through the schematics, and am pretty sure I can install a failsafe to keep the machine under proper control..."

Wufei sighed and stood, moving around to Trowa. He'd discussed Demigod with Heero, and though it was considered his suit, everyone knew Heero was taking care of the fixes.

Trowa held up a finger without looking around, then shook his head and started typing.

"What?" Wufei demanded quietly. "What is it?"

"Evidently," Trowa said quietly, "Gerrange and his lot have started to regroup."

Wufei leaned forward to the map that was loading on the screen—the speed meant that it was a _live_ feed from the satellite...and it showed...

"We got it," Trowa said firmly, looking up to Duo, Quatre, and Heero. "We got it...let's go."

The room fell deathly silent.

"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your time," Duo noted, pushing himself up. "However, it seems that we're needed elsewise, and will have to give your our updates later."

There was polite applause from some quarters, but Trowa was ripping cords from his machine and Quatre had pulled out his phone. Une disconnected her line wordlessly...and the five former pilots started toward the hanger.

"We'll get Jinli to stay with the boys," Quatre noted as he typed on the thing. "I'll get a reading on a few more to post outside their rooms...and we can pile into a humvee...well," he glanced up, "Deathscythe and Heavyarms...but..."

"Demigod should be ready by tomorrow," Heero noted. "If I can get someone to run diagnostics and stuff...we could take it now, but there hasn't been any testing done."

"I'd rather not have it short out on me in field again," Wufei noted dryly. "I think Heavyarms and Deathscythe will do alright."

"You could like...pilot a Leo," Quatre noted happily.

"And you could bend over and let Trowa take you," Wufei retorted.

Quatre snickered at that.

"I need to get ahold of Timorre," Trowa noted, looking up and around. He obviously hadn't been listening to them, and glanced at Heero briefly. He came to whatever decision he'd been considering and sighed as he passed Wufei his laptop before pulling out his phone. "I'll get Matty to call him. That's the only way anyone will get through."

"Bastard-say-what?" Heero asked curiously.

"You heard me ass-wipe," Trowa retorted, typing.

"You're not serious, are you?" Heero snapped. "Make Duo do it...he can call Rin and..."

"I'm having Matty do it, and you're getting over it, because you called me a bastard."

Heero huffed at him.


	2. Two

**Two**

Jaden ran a hand through his hair as he sat in their borrowed humvee. He and his men had gone into a city where Rab's dogs were playing—beyond the line of the ESA dipshits and routed the soldiers. Maxwell had insisted they were trying to start another civil war, but Jaden's men had the element of surprise, and then the support of the citizens once it was realized what they were doing. Those citizens had lent them a humvee from their local police station...and it had gone on like that until they had three. The people of those towns were feeding his men and letting them shower and what have you, but things took time—things like noting they were mercenaries and needed payment.

The thing was that the dumbasses with the ESA weren't taking the Brazilian soldiers. There was something about space-hearts coming that was keeping their numbers limited. It was ridiculous. The force that was supposed to keep their entire galaxy safe couldn't even keep a lid on a handful of rebels. They had their reasons, Jaden hadn't been integral to setting _up_ the base at Rio Soma. Rab had done that with a handful of men from the area, or who had contacts in the area. No one knew how deeply involved the Brazilian government was _with_ the rebels. Until those space-hearts actually showed up, it was all up in the air.

His phone started ringing.

Jaden groaned to himself as he pulled out the machine Maxwell had bought him. He wished the man hadn't because it was going off all the damn time.

Matty?

Jaden stared at the name that had appeared on the screen a long moment, then hit the button. "Hello?"

"Jaden?" Matt's voice was hesitant. "Uh...hey, it's Matt. Um..."

"Why are..._you_...calling me?"

"Trowa asked me to," the young man explained. "Heero's over here hissing and spitting, so I can't talk long...but...um, Trowa's been trying to get ahold of... Heero! Stop!"

Jaden blinked.

"Barton is calling you in two minutes," Yuy snarled into the phone. "Answer him."

The call ended.

Jaden stared at the machine as he cleared the call, looking around. No one was near to hear any of that...and Yuy was damn annoying. It wasn't like he expected more from the man, he was pretty certain that the next time they came face to face, he was going to end up in the hospital—and if that call meant much, Matt's intervention would probably worsen it.

Psychotic bastard.

Jaden pouted at his phone. He'd realized after Maxwell had left that his new found empathy for the five was lacking where the other man was concerned. Admittedly, that had something to do with the fact that he _knew_ the other man would fuck his shit up.

The phone started ringing again.

"I answer, as per orders," he spat immediately.

"Hey, I can't help what Heero does," Barton's voice was calm. "I was asking Matty to let you know I needed to talk to you."

"Why didn't _you_ call?"

"I've called you probably five times today," Barton retorted. "Every time I get a woman telling me you're busy."

Jaden grinned slightly, looking around. Emily Thane had decided he needed a secretary—she was the woman he'd used as a shield to leave Rab. When he was out doing his job, she would take the phone for him.

She hadn't gotten to the point of taking messages though...and a brigadier _fucking_ general of the ESA warranted a message at least...and five times?

"Shit," he muttered. "Sorry about that, she hasn't gotten a chance to give me my message yet. What's up?"

"We found a large mass that looks to be Wing. We're taking a force to it, so your men need to clear out of the area. Take the civilians with you."

"Wow...alright...where at? And what do we get out of it?"

"Give me two seconds to find the city name...and we'll get our booker to settle with you in a couple days."

"Booker?" Jaden demanded. "Barton, I get the severe sensation of being run around here."

"Maybe you didn't hear me," the man's voice turned dangerous. "I called you _five_ times today," he said quietly. "And not once did I get offered to leave you a message or for you to call me back. If you're going to run me, I'm not going out of my way to assist you...which includes seducing the rest of the fucking ESA so you get your permits and supplies."

Jaden hesitated.

"So, our booker will figure shit out with you in a few days, and right now you need to get your ass over to Lateour. I'm forwarding you the information now."

* * *

Rabid rubbed at the back of his neck as he considered the city they were approaching. They'd sent an advanced team to clear the area, and he and his men were going in with Wing.

Since the day the ESA had taken out Rio Soma, things hadn't gone in a way he liked. He'd been knocked out and packed around at first, and after coming to, none of the men had bothered asking what he thought as they scrambled around getting things organized. It'd taken them a few days before they even bothered asking for his opinions. Aside from China, there was no nation big enough for them to hide in, though they could probably find somewhere in Africa. The problem with Africa was that none of them would be able to stand the climate—let alone finding room for five thousand men.

...if he still had even that many.

Rab rubbed at his face, looking back over his shoulder. He was in a flat-bed truck, and Wing was strapped under a tarp behind him. It was in working-enough order...but what they really needed was the space ship.

There was a ship in port in Lateour. It was one of the many ships the ESA had auctioned off at the end of the wars. It was outfitted like a cruise ship, so after ousting the nonessentials on board, they'd have a space-worthy craft.

It was time to pull out his arsenal. He had a goodly number of suits stashed around the earth with what remaining people from his network he could get ahold of.

Those suits were armed...and aside from supplies, a space ship would do them well.

It was all in the planning from here on in—he just had be careful.

It was time for the war he'd been promising the ESA since he'd started to move.

They just didn't know it yet.

* * *

Quatre knew that feeling cold didn't make sense in light of the climate. He was in Brazil, breathing more water than air—though the trees all over the place belied that notion...or something anyway...but...

Losing Duo had torn something loose from his emotions...had shredded something that he hadn't been aware of until it was gone. The fact that it was Duo's own judgment that had landed him in the hands of a torturer made Quatre cringe and writhe inside. He knew that he wouldn't be able to live without Duo now...any of his friends, of course, but there was something that connected him to Duo, and if Duo disappeared? That was part of the writhing.

He knew that Duo could escape, he'd done it this time, and myriad times during the wars. Hell, he'd even escaped from confinement on the base before they'd left to their own lives. That wasn't the issue. The issue was the nightmare that would wake Quatre up in the middle of the night. The nightmare that was Duo on the vid, trying not to cry out in pain but not able to help it—even with that, Duo choking out that he forbid Quatre to get Sandrock even then...the knowledge that his intent to get the machine had disappointed Duo.

It was an emotional snarl like he'd never seen before, and he was chagrined because he couldn't stop _reading_ his lover. Sure, it was great during sex, or being alone together...but the open channel let in more than _just_ Duo. Trowa was all power and conceit on the outside, but he was playing on the inside. Trowa was searching for a new thrill, and invested in very little. Heero was doing something similar without being psycho about it...Matty was annoyed and upset with Blake...and Blake? Dear lord the guy was sparks and lightning. His focus was on everything, he was excited and happy and...disbelieving...and then he'd get some _idea_ in his head that involved Trowa. Those _ideas_ were undeniable. The only way Quatre could put a cap on it was to glare at the guy, because that'd make him simmer down.

That wasn't fair to Blake, and it wouldn't have worked if Blake hadn't ordered him to sit back down when Duo was still gone.

...why was he cold?

Well, it wasn't a physical sensation. Actually, he was sweaty and sticky on the outside, especially in the areas where he was pressed against Duo and Trowa.

He glanced sidelong at Duo.

"Hm?" Duo met his eyes with interest. That instant attention wasn't even a put-on thing. It hadn't been since he'd returned. He'd been focused on Quatre the entire damn time, and Quatre _knew_ it...

He smiled at the guy.

"What are you going to do about your hair?" Duo muttered, considering the more than obvious roots. "It's growing out too fast, if you ask me...but you going back to blond or you wanna try something different?"

"I was thinking about red," Quatre admitted, looking down.

"Red?" Trowa's interest sparked onto him. "We could call you fire-crotch."

"Trowa," Duo said in a level and happy tone, "he won't dye is pubes."

Quatre started laughing weakly.

"That's beside the point and you know it," Trowa retorted happily.

"But see, the term fire-crotch refers to the hairs around the genitals being red...like fire...around the crotch."

Trowa started laughing himself and considered Quatre as best he could. "I'd still totally do it."

"Dye your pubes? I knew you were weird," Quatre grinned across the way at Wufei.

Wufei started laughing...almost his raven laugh.

"What?" Trowa asked dryly.

"You want Matty to do the dye job?" Wufei asked, then started laughing harder.

"You want me to kill you, don't you?" Heero muttered, giving the man a level look.

"It'd be a stand-up job?" Wufei asked, then started laughing even harder. "You want cream with that?"

Heero himself started laughing, rolling his eyes and looking back out the window.

"Matty might," Quatre noted, then flinched internally.

Wufei's laughter was far too...him...to ignore. His basic core personality was reasserting itself as time went on...and that meant potential shit all around.

"I'd think that'd be messy...with the dye and all," Trowa muttered.

Duo started laughing himself—he'd been trying not to...and that made Heero focus on _him_ pointedly.

"Oh, oh man..." Wufei's laughter stopped almost too fast, and he sat back to look them all over seriously. "One time when I'd gone to the bar over on Lunner Avenue...it's got some hotties sometimes. They do this ladies night thing...like every Friday night."

Quatre narrowed his eyes at the man, then gave it up. Once Wufei got it into his head to tell them one of his stories, he did it. It didn't matter how bawdy, tasteless, or unbelievable it was...and Quatre had never quite appreciated that he'd never felt a _lie_ from his friend. With all the stories Wufei told...he, at least, believed every one of them.

...Quatre's friends were special.

* * *

Wufei had to admit that the exasperated disbelief of his friends was the best part of telling any of his stories. Relating something that none of them had ever seen was one thing, but reaching that point where they would never believe he was telling the truth...that was probably the funnest part.

He stepped from the humvee, stretching...and had a moment's deep disbelief when Quatre slammed into his back. He knew for a fact that he could stand up to the partial-blond, and that with his shock, he could have caught his balance before falling...but something _about_ Quatre's expression...and the sound he'd made.

Wufei fell willingly as a shot pinged off the side of their humvee, his eyes instantly following the line he was pretty sure it'd gone. He climbed off his friend, not entirely sure how he'd ended up on top when Quatre'd tackled him around the waist from behind...and realized he had his weapon in hand.

Those instincts were fun.

He started forward as people shouted, grateful beyond belief that Quatre was who he was...and started to run for his would-be killer.

If someone was going to take shots at him, he wanted his own turn.

* * *

"Shots fired! Shots fired!"

Jaden focused in disbelief on the radio as the man gave the sketchy details. Someone had shot at Chang.

Who in their right mind would choose _Chang_ as their first target? _Why_ Chang?

Jaden shook his head, looking around to his men. Most of them had already exchanged skeptical looks.

"Right," Jaden muttered, stretching his neck. "You've got your new assignments. Let's get on with this."

"Right," most of them agreed. They didn't salute him, or call him sir when he gave orders, they said 'right' and ran off. It sounded like sir with a salute, but...

Jaden watched them disappear to their various areas, then gave Emily a look.

"What?" she asked blankly. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"A brigadier general of the Earth Sphere Alliance," he said calmly, "warrants a message—or even a tap on the shoulder."

She blinked at him.

"Brigadier Barton was...actually pretty pissed at me when he finally got ahold of me."

She blinked again.

"So the next time he calls me, _let me know_."

"You're not his toadie anymore," she started to protest.

"No, but we're sort of relying on his ass to get us through right now. You _realize_ that we've only gotten the permissions to be here now...to earn this money or this food now...because _he_ said the right things to the council people?"

She blinked at him, then started to shake her head.

"We're dancing a fine dance now," Jaden grumbled, looking around. "We can't do anything until we get money—we could buy a ship or two...with money...to grow something on...to sell...for money...and not have to cowtow to..."

"We _left_ the Alliance because..."

"Because they're so entrenched in politics that you have to find a pair of scissors to say hi to the cute chick down the bar," Jaden cut her off. "Until we become an independent nation, we're under their thumb. If Marshal had anything right, it was that we have to play by their rules. He just didn't _play_ by their rules."

She frowned at him, looking down.

"Right now, we rank lower than a lieutenant as far as the ESA is concerned," he noted quietly. "Right now we're babes in arms to them. We can't go around _offending_ the people who are trying to _help_ us. Shit, Em, you could have at least taken a message."

"I'm sorry, Mr. President..."

"Oh, call me Jaden," he muttered irritably at her, pushing away from the vehicle. "You have your assignment don't you? I'm going to take five and listen to this chaos," he indicated the radio in the car. "Go on."

She nodded at him, not meeting his eyes, then turned and started away quickly.

Jaden sighed, shifting back into his seat and pulling out the phone. He waited for her to be away, then hit the button to dial Qing.

"Hey!" Qingfu greeted him happily. "You get shot at yet?"

"Not me, in the last hour," Jaden returned, smiling slightly. "Chang did, though."

"What?" Qingfu asked blankly. "He with you?"

"No," Jaden grinned slightly, looking around. "No, he's not here. I just have the radio on and people were freaking out about shots fired. Rab has Wing and is in Lateour. Barton called me a while ago and noted that they were moving in so we needed to get out. We got about a metric shit-ton of civilians setting up in some football arena. How are things with you? Illicit?"

"I'm pretty good...Maxwell sent me a laptop. I tried to call him, but he ignored me—I got a text from him later apologizing for that...it's not new or anything, but he also sent a link—the router kind. We have internet on the ship. Some of the kids were super excited after we got it working, because their phones started to connect again. It only really works in the lounge area, so there are kids all over it."

"Well, at least we can keep track a bit better," Jaden muttered, rubbing at his face. The radio was a chaos of order and record that suggested there was an actual assault going on.

...but then again, Rab had Wing and the military was trying to take it back.

"Yeah," Qingfu was thoughtful a moment. "Other than that, a group of people decided that holey uniforms were an affront to common decency. They found out who has what sewing crap and set up a repair shop for clothes. There are some people running around doing cleaning, too. Those supplies Maxwell sent started all sorts of things moving. Did I tell you?" Qingfu snickered. "He sent a box of sweats—just lounge pants and sweat pants...well, that and t-shirts."

"You're kidding me," Jaden groaned to himself. "The man is insane..."

"Well, the note he gave me with the laptop explained that the shirts were seconds from a factory by their base. I guess they got them at a bargain cost for buying in bulk. The sweats were pretty much the same. Some of them are weird—I got us some. I figured after a hot shower it'd be good to have something like that—I even made sure the legs were the same length."

Jaden laughed at that, appreciating it. Maxwell was a strange man...sweats and t-shirts? Really?

"I mean...he had socks in there, too...and general underwear. He said something about wanting something clean next time he gets himself tortured. There were like...six or seven boxes of this shit. At first I thought it was weird that we got anything, but the ship came up and hailed us to open our hatch up, and a bunch of soldiers just loaded the boxes across, asked if we had any wounded who needed the shore...then they left. They didn't say anything about us floating out here or anything—though one of the guys did say something that worried me. What's a barnacle? He said there might be some on the part of the ship under water. How do you even _check_ for that?"

"Barnacle?" Jaden echoed blankly. "Aren't those things on the foot?"

"No, those are bunions," Qingfu made a noise. "Well, I do have internet now. I guess I'll look it up and see...go for money, huh? Supplies are awesome and all, but I highly doubt we have anyone who'd know how to take care of the hull of this ship."

"Yeah, really," Jaden sighed. "Did I ever tell you I was jealous of Maxwell?"

"Jealous?" Qingfu sounded amused and skeptical. "I suppose his hands are bigger'n yours at that, huh?" he started laughing.

"You're stupid, it's not even...even that," Jade rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "You just always talk about him and stuff."

Qingfu went quiet a moment. "Den...he's just that fun. He sent me a laptop...he sent _us_ a link...for the ship. I don't care what his friends proclaim about us, he actually cares."

"I know...but..." Jaden sighed. "All I really got is you and Armend, and he's been upset with me since I pointed out that Maxwell is more than just a spoiled soldier. I wish you could be out here with me."

"We agreed that one of us needed to be on the ship, and one on the ground," Qingfu noted quietly. "You've got Armend being your right hand out there, and I'm doing everything I can out here. You really that lonely?" his tone turned sly. "That Thane girl...I bet she'd spare you a few minutes of her time."

"_She_ got all butt-hurt because Barton called me six times today."

"Why that many?" Qing was startled.

"He only got ahold of me once," Jaden noted dryly.

Qingfu made a pained noise.

"Yeah...he sent me to Lateour to pull our guys out, right? Well...he had _Matt_ call me."

"You shittin' me?" Qingfu was surprised.

"No, I'm serious. I let Em take my phone most of the time when I'm out on rounds and what have you—and she didn't even try to take him a message."

"Is she _trying_ to piss them off?"

"That's what I was trying to figure out," Jaden agreed dryly. "I didn't know that, right? And I was asking Barton what we got out of me taking the civilians here, and he noted their booker would get ahold of me later...which, what the fuck, man...and yeah. I couldn't believe that she didn't tell me he called or anything."

"That's...shit," Qingfu made a noise. "Maybe you should keep it with you."

"I should," he agreed. "But it's hard. If we're sneaking in and get a call?"

"Yeah, huh?" he made another sound. "You tell her not to do that?"

"Yeah, she's off pouting and stuff...it's getting hot in Lateour, too. I guess I should let you go. We might actually have to form a defensive line if shit goes south there. Look up whatever barnacles are...and how you deal with it...or anything else that might mess up the hull. I hadn't even thought about that."

"Yeah, really...be careful, huh? Maybe you can come home tonight."

Jaden sniggered at the suggestion—it'd be nice to get back to his room and bed...but he wasn't putting any bets on it.

Until Winner got his covey of space-hearts, the ESA was low on man-power...and really, Illicit needed all the money and supplies it could get.

* * *

"Sloppy."

Blake glowered at Jinli.

"You're being sloppy," Jinli persisted irritably to him. "Do what I do...sharp. gestures." He punctuated the last two words by a calculated movement of his arm.

"Did you get it?" Blake demanded of Matty, who was laying on his bed and watching the pair tiredly.

"Fian's showed me how to do stuff before," Matty shrugged. "He was showing me some of those katas he and Heero do. I was just doing it like that."

"Oh..." Blake looked a little crestfallen.

"Why do you call him Fian?" Jinli muttered, stretching his arms as he considered the youth. "I'm pretty sure you've done it since before I came back into the picture, but you never explained it."

"When we first met, they weren't telling me their real names yet. Fian...Fei, goes by Ian. I forget if it was Duo or Quatre...or Trowa...but one of them was telling me something and almost called him Fei—they realized it and switched to Ian. F...Ian."

Blake snorted.

"You're kidding me," Jinli muttered dryly. "And you call him that _all_ the time."

"He's Fian," Matty grinned at the guy. "Duo was running around calling me Bobby before."

"Bobby?" Blake asked blankly.

"It was severely loose logic, and even Heero thought he'd just forgotten my name."

Blake snickered.

"What's your thing with Fei, anyway?" Jinli had sat on the floor and was stretching out his legs.

"My thing with Fei?" Matty blinked at him. "You wanna run that by me in Chinese? Japanese?"

Jinli gave him a look.

Blake snickered, then focused on his arm, trying to make the gestures Jinli had shown him 'sharp.'

"Not too much," Jinli cautioned quickly. "You want it sharp...and...languid."

"I'm not a martial artist at all," Matty noted thoughtfully, "so correct me if I'm wrong...but wasn't that just a contradiction of terms?"

Jinli snickered and flipped him off.

"Show me how," Blake urged Matty. "Show me how Wufei showed you."

Matty sighed and pushed himself off the bed—he was already wrung-out from the lesson with Wufei earlier in the day...but...

* * *

Heero growled low in his throat as the soldiers disappeared into a space ship. The machine was one of the auctioned off ones.

If it wasn't one thing, it was another. In this case, there were a large group of enemy soldiers off on the left flank trying to harry them into opening a path to the ship. A goodly portion of soldiers had already made it inside—and the only point of blessing was that the machine was in port between flights. There weren't many civilians on it...but that was also a hardship. Without civilians to oust, the enemies in the machine could take it over and fly it away. The fact that it was an ex-military ship meant it had cargo holds large enough to hold Wing...and then some.

That meant he needed to find that damn machine.

Heero looked around, regretting again that he hadn't done it when he walked away from it. That had been sheer stupidity on his part—despite the fact that he had destroyed it the one time and the idiot Zechs had rebuilt it.

He pushed away from their line as people looked to him curiously.

"What're you doing, 'ro?" Trowa demanded, snapping an arm into his path so he was half caught at the waist.

"What do you think?" Heero retorted.

Trowa's fingers dug into his side as he stared up at the other man. "_Don't_ get caught," he ordered...then dropped his arm...and his magazine.

Heero nodded and darted off down the line, keeping low.

Quatre met him before he could go far, though, standing fully in his path with blazing eyes. "You're doing it?" he demanded, then reached up and caught him by the collar of his shirt and yanked him down so they were face to face. "You hit that fucking button and you get your ass _out_, Heero. No playing around."

"I know," Heero started.

"_No_," Quatre hissed. "Look at me, meet my eyes...**_you. get. out._**"

Oh, right. He'd been willing to go with his machine in the wars.

For some reason, the partial-blond assuming he'd do it again struck him as funny, and Heero smirked a bit. "Aishiteru," he noted, kissing the other's cheek, "modotte." He darted past him through the soldiers. He had a feeling Quatre was going to want to discuss that little conversation later, but that was okay.

After Wing was gone...it'd be fine.

He came up short as Wufei caught the front of his shirt and the strap of his weapon, spinning him around with his own shining eyes.

"You lot make it _awful_ hard to get shit done," Heero growled, leaning in so they were face to face.

"Your boy needs his man," Wufei noted, backing up very slightly. "You do this and you get back here before that fucker blows."

"Goi, joushi," he whispered back.

"My _birthday_," Wufei reminded him in a fierce growl.

Heero rested his hands briefly on Wufei's before yanking the man's hand off and starting to move away a bit slower.

Wufei let him go, which surprised him. With the notes that Trowa and Quatre had given him, he'd figured he'd get more of the same...but then again, Matty would be devastated if he died. That went beyond Heero's own conceit. He knew that Matty really loved him, and after everything they'd been through together so far, he was very integral to the other's life. That was a much more solid link to life than just being ordered to it.

He glanced back, seeing that Wufei was still watching him, then grinned and started to pick up his pace again.

Matty wasn't the only one who'd be devastated if he died...that meant he had something to live for. Shit, he hadn't gotten Fei a present yet...he'd have to figure that out. It was Fei's own fault for waiting so long to remind him—maybe his present would be late.

Heero shook his head, darting toward the trees beyond the fighting. He was just going to tempt fate a little bit—it wouldn't even be as traumatic as Duo's stunt.

...but what the _hell_ was he going to get Fei?

* * *

Duo snarled as he jumped off the flat Deathscythe was strapped to. He'd barely caught a glance of Heero disappearing into the trees.

What was he...

Oh.

Oh...shit.

Duo stopped, looking around wildly. It'd been decided that the fighting they were doing didn't need any form of MS. Trowa'd accepted that without pause and gone into the fighting, but Duo'd run both machines through a last minute overhaul. Heavyarms was stuffed with all the ammo Trowa'd certainly use up if he got into the machine, and Deathscythe's beams were in working order. He really wanted to pull out the hand-scythe and go into the fray, but the mutilation a hand-held beam-saber could cause had been a point that'd almost had a noose around his neck when the wars were done.

So, Heero was going after Wing on foot.

Duo turned and darted back to the straps holding the machine down.

"Sir?" a young woman asked, moving up to him immediately—she was part of the team that was there to help the gundams rise without ruining the straps or trucks.

"Yuy's after Wing," he told her shortly, starting to unlatch the thing. "That means a very _big_ explosion."

Her eyes went huge, and she gestured to her team, running to start unhooking the gundams.

This...was going to be bad. Duo really had a feeling it was going to be bad. There were too many people on hand...was the ship even far enough away? How big had the explosion been before? What modifying factors were present here? How many were present in the machine itself?

"Quatre?" he muttered, raising his phone to his mouth.

"Where is he?" Quatre returned instantly.

"I saw him hit the trees," Duo explained, watching the covering-tarp get yanked away from his gundam.

"We have a few minutes, then," Quatre reassured him. "Get in your machine."

"That's what I'm doing," Duo retorted, starting to climb the thing.

"Barton!" Quatre shouted over his own.

Duo didn't hear Trowa's response, because he had hit the release for the cockpit.

This...was going to be...something.


	3. Three

A/N: Oh, yeah! Disclaimer, disclaimer! Gundam Wing does no belong to me, I just play like it like it does 'cause it amuses me.

* * *

**Three**

Rabid watched the men fighting below the ship, feeling almost distant. For one, he still didn't understand why the force was so small. The ESA had acknowledged him as a threat to their order, so why was it such a mild display?

He shook his head irritably as the soldiers chased more of the civilians from the ship. They were ushering them into the boat-house on the far side of the thing, which they were guarding so the men didn't try to come back on the ship. It was going to be hard enough with just the supplies on board, they didn't need any hostages to feed.

There was a sound, a commotion off to his left, and he focused that way in disbelief. Men were running around Wing...and some were...

...

"**_Retreat!_**" Rab screamed, raising his radio to his mouth. "**_Retreat!_**"

There was a mass of disbelief as the enemy soldiers almost broke at once. They almost seemed to be reacting to _him_.

...the bastard!

"_Get on the ship!_" he knew he had to be screaming but couldn't help it as he turned toward the interior. "_Damn_ you, Yuy!" Rab snarled as men started almost uncertainly for him. He had to figure they wouldn't have bothered if the enemies weren't running, too.

He turned and ran for the control room, feeling his heart screaming in his chest.

Yuy couldn't destruct it could he? He wouldn't do that _would_ he? What about the people around?

Rab slid into the control room, looking out the window...as his heart slid into his throat.

Deathscythe and Heavyarms, moving forward...and there.

Yuy.

Rab screamed for his men to move...they only had moments before...

* * *

Heero snarled as he was thrown, an odd silence to the world around him as his ears rang...fuck that. They were _singing_. His ears were...well, fucked.

...this was going to hurt.

The world around him finished going utterly white. He was pretty sure he got far enough away that the explosion wouldn't just kill him right off...but that did still leave him flying through the air...

_Pain_...his nerves were screaming and singing with pain...

Well...Wing was gone...Wing was...everything was fine.

* * *

The explosion wasn't half as epic as Duo'd thought it would be. He was almost disappointed by that...or would have been, if he hadn't seen the men being thrown by it.

So...where was Heero?

The ground shook around him, and he was grateful their men had fled without argument. He'd seen a fair amount of Rab's men follow him into that damned ship, but the fallout of a gundam exploding basically meant the fighting was done. Whatever happened now happened...

Unless...

"Trowa?"

"You know how many men are on it?" Trowa asked instantly.

"No," Duo returned.

"We don't have a real choice here, though, do we?" Trowa asked...and before Duo could even start to answer, one of Heavyarm's arms rose into the air...

Destroying a civilian craft...that was an all time low for Duo.

The space-ship—a black beauty named Obsidian—started putting out smoke and exhaust.

They hadn't even cleared the launch pad!

Duo shouted as Trowa's shots obliterated any sound that might have happened around those engines...he watched as a hole appeared in the side of the ship...but it was already rising into the air.

"The flank!" Quatre shouted. "We have to get those men before they can run!"

Duo turned instantly at the order, something inside him feeling cold.

But...Heero...

"Heero!" Wufei shouted, panic in his voice. "We have to find Heero!"

"Get him!" Quatre ordered. "Now!"

Duo could see Wufei streaking through the now empty battle-area...as Obsidian jetted off over the ocean.

That's right, Rab. No space travel for you...just the entire fucking earth and not even enough weaponry to create a mercenary group.

What was Timorre doing?

God...where was Heero?

Duo took off toward the men who'd been flanking them.

This was going to get messy.

* * *

Jaden and his men were holding their line, watching the surrounding area...that explosion had been scary enough from a distance, and how many men had been fighting there?

Had that been Wing?

Hearing the fighting off to the left made Jaden nervous, because his men didn't have any sort of distinguishing uniform. If the fighting got this far it'd be hard to tell friend from foe...at least until they got the roster.

He could just see himself calling for a pause in the fighting—maybe he'd give red ribbons to the enemies...

"Timorre?"

"Maxwell?" Jaden returned instantly.

"Keep your line tucked in," the man ordered. "Ready area so we can set up our E.R."

"Maxwell?" Jaden asked levelly, "what just went boom?"

"Wing," the man noted sharply—Jaden could see Deathscythe now, moving above the tree line, but a goodly ways off. "We've got runners. Keep it tight."

"Right," he agreed...and wondered if that was where his men had gotten it. He did say it all the time didn't he?

"Supreme?" Armend asked, moving up to his side.

"Evidently our dearly beloved brigadier pains in the ass just made Wing explode," Jaden returned, watching the gundam as it set down almost out of sight. "_Ready a first aid!_" he shouted, to his men. "Keep the line tight and ready a field!"

Men started moving instantly, the line starting to move in.

"Wing?" Armend asked quietly, watching Deathscythe. "You mean that seriously?"

"You heard the explosion," Jaden agreed, glancing toward the area the battle'd been in.

"I guess," the man agreed, then started away. "I'll go get our line in close."

Jaden nodded, watching him stride away, then turned and headed out to find a good flat area to set up a field-hospital.

It'd be interesting to see what the ESA's booker had to say...maybe Qing'd have gotten a wild hair to look up other mercenaries online—that'd make discussing price a helluva lot easier.

* * *

Wufei was panting as he moved through the trees and bushes. The heat hadn't properly abated for this...but he'd been hoping his friend would show up _before_ the gundam exploded.

He heard groaning, darting around a few trees...to see an unfamiliar man curled on the ground.

"_Medic!_" he shouted, realizing vaguely that men had followed him into the mess. He'd expected it, known it'd happen...but he hadn't consciously thought it.

He moved on, looking around again. His heart was hammering in his chest as he moved through the trees. He doubted any spider or snake would still be alive or feeling feisty after a blast like that, so he didn't bother watching where he was going. Another man...two more...a woman...he kept finding bodies—mostly living...but not the one body he _wanted_ to see.

He stopped, realizing he was outright gasping. His lungs were healed, he wasn't sick...but...this probably wasn't good for them.

If Wing was there...Yuy would have taken a straight...

"Heero!" Wufei nearly stumbled over the man as he moved to correct his angle.

Heero groaned.

"Oh god..._medic!_" he shouted again, louder this time. "I found him," he added into his phone. Heero was on his side...and bloody. Most of his clothing was in tatters, but he was still bleeding.

So...how bad off was he?

"You did?" Duo demanded. "Fei..."

"I'm looking!" Wufei snapped back as men started for him...and the shout came that it was _Brigadier_ Yuy. "I see blood...he's half conscious...I don't know...I think he's okay..."

"Fuck you," Heero returned, groaning again. "I think I just made an entire species of tree go extinct."

Wufei laughed at that, realizing that the front of the man's shirt was all ripped up as well. "You can hear me, at least."

"Oh, my head is ringing nicely," Heero opened his eyes to blink blankly up at him—for about a twitch. He closed his eyes tightly. "Ow..."

"He's talking to me," he added into his phone, realizing relief had swept through him. "He's...oh god," he let the phone lower, leaning forward to rest his head against his friend's shoulder.

"What sort of friend would I be to die so close to your birthday?" Heero muttered. "Don't touch me, but cover that light...I hurt so bad that I don't hurt..."

"You coulda set it to delay exploding like...a minute or something."

"No...the most delay on Wing was thirty seconds."

Wufei started laughing weakly.

"Sir!" several men were moving up to him with a stretcher between them.

"Let's go," Wufei ordered, picking himself up and looking around the battlefield. He sighed, then gestured for the rest of the men on the field to carry-on and started to follow the stretcher.

"Illicit's unit secured an area for red-cross," one of the higher ranking men noted to Wufei. "We got an advanced team there scurrying to get things set up..."

"Good," Wufei muttered, looking down to Heero.

"Oh _fuck_ you," Heero grumbled.

"Sir?" the man was confused.

"He has a personal grief against Timorre...the president of Illicit," Wufei explained. "He fully intended to mop the street with Timorre's face the next chance he got—that won't be happening any time soon."

Heero grunted sourly.

"Well...I'd almost apologize," the man flashed Wufei a slight grin. "But I think that'd be in bad humor."

* * *

"Hello?" Matty asked nervously, opening his phone. They'd all told him that not hearing anything was the best...but if they were calling...

If _Fian_ was calling.

"Hey, Matty," Wufei said tiredly. "I don't want you to freak out."

"Oh _that_ is the _most_ reassuring thing you can say, isn't it?" Matty snapped irritably, realizing his heart was hammering in his chest.

"Well he's _hurt_," Wufei snapped back. "We gave him the Remalene already, but he hit the self-destruct on Wing. He was still pretty close when it blew."

Matty lost hold of any emotion at all...and on his sore muscles as he dropped onto the mattress he'd been standing by. He swallowed as Blake gave him a concerned look, and Jinli was reading the face of his phone.

"He's torn up and his head was ringing, but nothing fatal. We have a field-hospital set up and he's currently passed out on a bed there. We're gonna hang out here until we get the whole situation stabilized, then we'll transport him back to base. We're going to set up a wing as ours, too. The big communal sleeping area is fine for five or six, but there are too many of us, and with him like this he's going to have a hard time getting to sleep. Uh...someone...else...is telling Jinli I think...I have to call him in a minute...but can you pack our stuff up please? He's fine, really. Sleeping now."

Matty started rubbing at his face, then sighed. "How's Trowa?"

"He's fine. Him and Duo are off trying to stop the retreat."

"Jaden?"

"He's out here with us helping set up the hospital and checking soldiers. He wasn't in the fighting at all."

Matty nodded. "All...all right...I'll start our end."

"Thanks," Wufei muttered...and ended the call.

"Well?" Blake asked, moving to his side.

"Trowa's fine, he's out routing the escapees...but Heero's been given Remalene. I guess...he...he self-destructed Wing...so..."

The man's eyes went wide.

"Wufei said he's fine," Matty reassured him quickly, looking around to Jin as his phone started to ring. "He's torn up and stuff, but not...really...injured..."

"Oh...shit," Blake returned, looking around.

"We're moving," Matty added, pushing himself up. "We're getting our own rooms—I assume it'll be an end hall somewhere so they can set up a secure perimeter. Let's get packed up...all of the stuff in here...I think Wufei is having Jinli give the orders."

"You're astute," Jin noted as he moved close to them and looked between them a moment. "I won't send anyone at all to you," he noted. "And if I do, I'll tell them to say...um...fack-ass," he decided, meeting eyes. "So unless a soldier comes up and says fack-ass, I didn't send him. I'll leave the door-guard that Quatre picked...and be back as soon as I can."

Matty nodded, watching him move across the room, glance back at them, then disappear.

"That's...kinda scary," Blake said quietly. "We aren't really in danger, are we?"

"I couldn't say for sure," Matty returned, moving toward his and Heero's stuff. "Let's not dwell and get this packed up. I have a feeling they won't be back until dawn," he looked out at the dark night. "Come on," he added, then focused on his task.

* * *

Duo watched as the last of Gerrange's guys folded...and wished they had the men Quatre was supposed to be getting them. Quatre's space-hearts had been sent for, but there was some paperwork holding them up.

They'd have to get on that. As soon as they could clear the Brazilian bases in the area, they would stop having to flounder through the muck. Timorre's men were good and all, but they didn't have enough of anything they needed...or enough of _them_.

It wasn't like these were _all_ of the men that had fled Lateour anyway. The problem with the jungle was that it was all around them, and the lead up to that blasted city was empty...and all sorts of such nonsense that meant that the roaches had scattered again.

He ran a hand through his hair, sighing heavily as he sat back in his seat.

"You okay?" Trowa asked, his eyes on the men below them.

"All we gained here today was wounded men," Duo returned. "Heero's in god-knows what state of health, Wing is gone-johnson, Gerrange's men got Obsidian, and the ones who didn't make it are out in the jungles...and we don't have enough men to round them up until _someone_ gets their ass on clearing those space-hearts."

Trowa ran a hand across his face a moment, then looked properly to Duo's screen. "I'm tired of waiting, you seem to be...Quatre's too out of it emotionally to pull his shit together, so we'll take his vote..."

"I heard that," Quatre noted dryly.

"Wufei is emotionally exhausted, and Heero is unconscious."

"Okay?" Duo asked curiously.

Trowa shrugged, starting to hit buttons on his console.

"What are you..."

Trowa held up a silencing finger, focused on the screen in front of himself.

"Hello?" Duo blinked at the woman's voice. "How can I help you, Brigadier?"

"Brigadier Winner has some space-hearts waiting for clearance."

"Yes, sir," she agreed.

"I give them clearance."

"Um...sir..."

"_I_ give them clearance," Trowa stated firmly. "With the full approval of Brigadiers Maxwell, Yuy, Chang, and Winner."

The woman didn't respond a long moment.

"Do it, do it now, and get them _to_ Earth."

"But, sir..."

Duo noted with some interest that _the look_ was still eerie from a side-angle on a camera.

"_I_ said to _do_ it," Trowa growled at the woman. "Are you disobeying a direct order, soldier?"

Duo grinned slightly as the woman started stuttering, watching his friend disconnect.

"So, I say this evening some time," Trowa noted, pulling a pack of cigarettes from...somewhere. "And so help me, if you start _bitching_ at me," he tapped one out and set it to his lips, "I'll kick your ass."

"Don't be stupid," Duo retorted, hitting the release on his hatch, too. "Toss me one."

* * *

For some reason, Trowa wasn't surprised that Quatre punched him in the arm after kissing Duo. The blue-eyed male glowered up at the slightly taller man a long moment, then spun his attention back to Duo.

"What?" Duo asked blankly.

"You didn't even argue against him," Quatre retorted.

"Is he wrong?" Duo gave his lover a look. "You haven't even gotten men to guard Matty yet. You're still reading me all the damn time, too, so don't even look at me like that."

Quatre blinked at him, his cheeks starting to flush.

Trowa laughed wickedly, dancing back from the partial-blond as he tried not to laugh _more_. If Quatre'd been reading...he wasn't even _trying_ to control his emotions—and had they even warned Blake? With some of the shit Blake would do that'd get Duo's full and complete attention...

Quatre's cheeks flared into his first blush in ages, turning on Trowa.

Trowa half-giggled, moving even further back as he tried to sort through his emotions. "Just a second...just a second..."

Duo sniggered, watching as Trowa...rearranged himself.

"Better?" Trowa hazarded, taking a slow breath. "Is that?"

"It's...a bit," Quatre admitted, not meeting his eyes as he looked around. "I didn't know you could tell."

"You get a look in your eyes," Duo muttered, touching Quatre's temple briefly. "A distant focus. It's been there since I got back—at first I thought it was just the stress, but..."

Quatre nodded, ducking his head.

Duo considered him a long moment, then looked around to Trowa. "Not to say I haven't enjoyed it...but some of Blake's...notions...seem to go a little far afield."

Trowa smirked back at him, deciding not to respond to that.

"You might want to warn him that he's not alone in his...um..." Duo licked his lips as he considered what to call that.

"I fully intend to," Trowa pursed his lips, looking back to Quatre with a grin.

Quatre sighed, rolling his eyes as he started away. "Let's go find Wufei and Heero."

* * *

Chang looked like a train wreck.

Jaden moved hesitantly closer to the pair of brigadier generals, considering the comatose male a moment. "You okay?"

"I'm just...having a long-ass day," Chang explained, shifting back to look up at the guy. "You need something? I'm not above pissing off your union."

"You're...Wufei?" Jaden muttered, tilting his head slightly. "Matt talks about you."

"Did he really?" Chang asked dryly. "So you won't be too surprised when I down your ass?"

Jaden held his hands up palms out. "I'm sorry, okay? I know I fucked up—Maxwell sort of rubbed my nose in it when he was with me...but you look...like you could use a drink."

Chang's eyes narrowed.

Jaden remembered Matt talking about Chang needing to watch his drinking. "Uh...coffee?"

"You _have_ coffee?"

Jaden turned and signaled to one of his men.

"Supreme?" the man asked, moving closer to him.

Jaden gave him a level look—which got a grin. "Chang wants some coffee."

"I'll see if there's any made," the guy noted, grinning more. "Right?" he turned and bounced away.

"Supreme?" Chang asked. "I thought you preferred to be called captain."

"It's all going beyond what I prefer," Jaden noted dryly, moving around to lift the blanket on Yuy. "He looks like shit."

"He was trying to fly," Chang's tone was still dry. "You bothering me for a reason?"

"I _said_ I was sorry," Jaden glowered at him. "You look a little wiped."

"We were training...I was showing Matty how to do some self-defense and stuff...last night." He looked toward the dark sky. "What _time_ is it?"

"One," Jaden returned, glancing at his watch.

"Damn," he rubbed at his face. "The training turned into a sparring match with Heero," he indicated the passed-out man on the cot next to his chair. "Then with Trowa...we'd barely got showered before we went into the meeting...and Trowa found Wing."

"Busy day," Jaden noted, considering him.

"And this," the man indicated his friend again.

Jaden nodded as the soldier he'd sent running came up with a styrofoam cup in one hand, and a stir-stick in the other.

"Here you go, sir," the guy passed the stuff over to the officer, then hesitated as he realized what he'd said.

"Thanks," Chang sighed, eyeing the man. "You hate me or something?"

"You personally fucked me over in a fight or two."

The general gave him an amused look. "You're still alive, aren't you?"

The man gave him an almost exasperated look.

"Respect is respect," Chang added as he started away. "Doesn't matter what side of the camp you're on—you helped us and we appreciate it. All my men are calling me sir and saluting, old habits die hard."

The man nodded without looking back at him, then wandered off.

Jaden considered him as he tried to figure out where to set things, then offered his hand. The man gave him a grateful look, setting the cup in his hand and starting to tear the sugars open.

He was tired, exhausted.

"Why don't you time out?" Jaden hazarded. "Take a moment to rest your eyes. You look like you could use three nights under sedatives."

"You and sedatives," Chang gave him a sour look. "You can overdo that you know."

That made the captain flinch, and he shrugged at the other, passing the cup back when he was done pouring things into it.

Chang sighed heavily, pulling a chair from the next station over. "Take a weight off," he suggested. "I'm too damn tired to try and kick your ass."

Jaden smiled slightly at that, taking the offered seat. "So how you holding up?"

Chang gave him an interested look, sipping at the cup.

"Matt was saying you were...having a hard time about...your past," Jaden explained, shrugging a little. "I suppose it's none of my business, but you look like hell warmed over and tossed to the dogs."

"Thanks," Chang noted dryly. "Always good to hear my good traits..." he flicked his head slightly so the loose strands of his hair moved from in front of his eyes. "And your ass looks fine—which is amazing since you're within ten feet of Yuy."

Jaden glanced at the man almost nervously, shifting where he sat. "I'm glad my plan of staying away until he was out worked."

Chang smirked.

"I actually did decide to stay away, not that it was hard," he focused around the red-cross area. There was a loose ring of mercenaries and soldiers surrounding the area. The city had been swept through for Rab's guys, so the citizens had been allowed to return home. Some had stayed to help with the wounded, and some had gone to help clear up the mess the explosion had made. "It's been busy lately."

"Damn busy year," Chang agreed tiredly. "When we met Matty, I really hadn't expected anything to come of him. He was just some cute kid Heero picked up...but he like, throws Heero around." The man smiled slightly. "Likes to grab handfuls of Trowa's hair...damn impetuous. We were just about to do another sweep of the colonies." He chuckled deep in his throat. "He tell you that his first sight was Maxwell was his white-ass?"

Jaden raised an eyebrow. "That one escaped me somehow."

"Well...the day we met him...you know our apartment, huh?"

"In theory. Large room, high ceiling...half carpeted, something like that, huh?"

Chang nodded, taking another sip of his cup and shifting back where he sat to rest one booted foot on the edge of Yuy's cot. "I think we'll be working with you some, and I want you to understand..."

"I _said_ Maxwell rubbed my face in..."

Chang made a sharp gesture for silence, and Jaden stumbled over his words as his voice cut.

_Trained true_, he noted bitterly to himself, glowering glumly at the brigadier.

"I know Duo rammed home what you did to Matty. I'm not going to belabor it."

Jaden looked away, glad no one had been near enough to see or hear that.

"What _I_ am saying," Chang moved on, "is that Heero's a special case. He's got some short comings in his humanity that we've been ripping and tearing at for years now. He mimics us when he doesn't know what to do...so most people don't notice it in him without knowing him...but we have taught him pleasure."

Jaden looked away at that, his mind flashing briefly to an expression he'd seen on Matt's face a few times—a naughty one, knowing and eager.

"Since last fall...I think, around now, actually, he noted that the floor temperature in the room we were all sharing was cool. As winter set in he started making helpful suggestions—logical ones. The floor was cold so we should all have slippers by our beds or sleep in socks. Maybe get throw rugs so we could stand up beside our beds...little things, but persistent. He went so far as to buy me a pair of slippers," the man smiled fondly, looking to the comatose man beside him as he took another drink of his cup. "He wouldn't react to the elements unless they could cause physical danger before. He ignored them, tuned them out. It was damn hard to get him to admit that he felt discomfort at all, and I didn't want to lose that progress by just ignoring his feet being cold."

Jaden considered the man, catching a hint of the youthfulness in his features—it wasn't as strong in him as it as in Maxwell, but that was probably because he was dead-dog tired. Matt had said he'd pick and poke and laugh all the time...Jaden sort of wanted to see that.

"So I talked the others into getting the carpet installed in the bed area, we were going out of town anyway. We could pile the beds off to one side, get the carpet in...and by the time we got back it'd be aired out, right? So that was our plan—that's what we did. It was just a bit more...chaotic than we expected. My first sight of Matty was him standing talking to Heero. My approach annoyed Heero and I realized that he was attracted to the kid—I'm straight..."

"And...espoused?" Jaden gave him a blank look.

The man smirked at him again, taking another drink. "Is it legal if it hasn't been consummated? Can't we like, get it annulled?"

Jaden blinked at him several times. "Uh...this isn't...the medieval era..."

Chang laughed, his eyes bursting into that same sparkle he could get out of Maxwell if he said the right thing—the unexpected thing.

Seeing the youth in Chang was both reassuring and disturbing. There was something aloof about the one-time lord, at least...if you didn't know him. The man had been married, selected to be the leader of his generation of his clan. Looking at him, exhausted and worn, he looked a lot less dangerous than the mythical gundam pilot.

"Who is he?" Jaden asked quietly, studying the man curiously.

"He? Oh, Jin," Chang flicked his hair out of his eyes again. The sparkle faded almost instantly to be replaced with that same brooding power. "My...best friend."

Jaden couldn't help but glance at Yuy.

"From childhood," Chang's tone took on that dry cast it'd had previously. "We had sleep overs, child-wars, birthday parties...and trained together."

"I thought...they'd all...died," Jaden had thought the man would have come randomly into their group like Matt himself had, not that...that he'd be talking about that colony...he had _not_ wanted to talk about _that_.

The man smiled slightly, meeting his eyes as he took another drink from the cup—it had to nearly be empty. "Not everyone," he looked back to his boot on the ground a moment, then dropped the cup on the ground near it as he changed how he was sitting again. "Funny thing...it was because of Matt that _I_ know that."

Jaden blinked.

The man studied him intently. "Matty is a little brother to me. He's the kid brother to pick and poke at...but no one else can fuck with him."

Jaden blinked again, starting to open his mouth.

"The moment he looks upset, I will tear you _down_," the man promised.

"You all threaten like that, don't you?" Jaden snapped petulantly, crossing his arms as he sat back. "Is it _fun_?"

"I'm not threatening, Supreme," the man purred, sounding dangerous. Hell, he _looked_ dangerous. "I'm promising."

Jaden narrowed his eyes, ignoring the annoyance at Armend's nickname coming from someone else. "Cliche."

"Ah, but oh so true," the man smiled toothily at him a moment, his eyes sparkling that brief moment. "I was going to beat Maxwell when I found out he was directing you to this," he indicated the camp. "Allying you with us meant that neither Heero nor I could beat the living _shit_ out of you like the pair of us want to oh **_so_** badly."

"You're a pleasant conversational companion," Jaden grumped, starting to gather himself. He did have other things to do than listen to this.

Chang snorted. "Think what you will, but listen a minute more. Heero was eager to keep Matty, brought him into our home where sex-toys weren't brought. He talked damn fast and hard to get us to buy the penthouse next to ours so the kid could move in with us, and he's offered actual marriage. His entire world revolves around the teenager you took from our very _home_. As if Hanager running around like a psycho wasn't enough, you waltzed in and got _us_ to do _your_ dirty work. What you've realized since is entirely moot. Matty's working damn hard to make Yuy back off of you, but he hasn't realized is that me or Quatre might just step in and do it for him. When we're back around Matty, and we _will_ be...and by we, I mean us _and_ you...you better watch your ass. Your lover has befriended Maxwell, but that just makes the pot sticky for all of us."

Jaden glared at him a moment longer, then turned and walked away.

The gundam pilots _were_ assholes..._young_ assholes...damn young assholes.

He ran a hand through his hair, wondering if they even knew who they were yet.

"Supreme?" Armend asked, moving closer to him. "What's up?"

"I just talked to Chang," Jaden returned dryly. "I thought he was pulling shit, but I think he just really _is_ too tired to kick my ass right now."

"Feed him Rin," Armend suggested.

Jaden turned to stare at him, realizing he wasn't actually surprised. Armend was; he had a shocked look like he couldn't believe he'd said it.

"Sorry," the man ducked his head.

"I think I'm taking ten," Jaden said in a low voice, reaching for his phone. "Watch things for me, will you?"

"Right."

* * *

E/N: Alright...just as a note here, I figure I'll do a chapter a night. Also the formatting for hates me. I also hate the dividing lines between sections but i needed something that worked...and furthering the formatting, I totally didn't turn off the auto-bit on word that makes the é or the ï...so it'll have things like "nave" when i mean "naive" or...cliche. i caught that one, and I'm gonna try for the rest but yeah. i don't know why it can't accept those from word or ANY other formatting, but there we go.

At any rate, sorry it took me so long to get this up. I slammed into the brick-wall that is writer's block around the end of Half Cocked and had to wade out of the muck before i could finish this. I'll get working on Jokers Wild shortly. so...review, i like to know how I'm doing as long as you're not mean! love! -Kye


	4. Four

**Four**

Quatre yawned as he moved into the red-cross area. People were looking at him, soldiers jumping up to salute or nod respectfully. He saw quite a few of the latter looking at his hair.

Okay, he needed to do something about it, it'd grown out faster than he'd expected...but half of the fun anymore was Matty trying _not_ to notice it.

He nodded to the men, reaching back until he found Duo's hand...but...that hand was rougher than Duo's...calluses in different areas...longer fingers.

Trowa sniggered.

Quatre rounded on his friend, starting to hit the man's shoulders as the guy danced backwards snickering his happily wicked laugh.

"Sorry! Sorry!" Trowa started warding off the blows by raising his hands. "Blake does that all the time! I didn't think about it!"

It was a lie, but Trowa wasn't trying to be mean or rude or anything. He was doing his thrill thing...which was evidently trying to get a rise out of Quatre.

Did this count?

Quatre smacked him again, glowering into his eyes. He wasn't sure what he really thought, but Duo had evidently stopped to talk to a soldier. He was half-strolling to them with his hands in his pockets and an amused expression. They met and held eyes, and Quatre decided it was okay to pout. He turned away from the pair and looked around the pavilion.

"To the..." Duo started.

"I can find him," Quatre retorted irritably, turning right. He could _feel_ his friends.

"Hey, don't be mad," Duo protested, moving around—Quatre heard the sound of a smack, and Trowa snickered. "For what it's worth, it was a sorta...reaction...like, your hand went back and his went up..."

Trowa didn't respond, and Quatre decided it wasn't worth worrying his lover. He turned and gave Trowa a dirty look, then rolled his eyes. "There was a little more to it than that," he noted. "But that kinda was the simplicity."

The sound of Duo's footsteps changed, and Trowa laughed delightedly, bouncing backwards from the other male with his hands up again.

"Why _were_ you bitching about decorum?" Quatre demanded, rounding on him. Trowa's actions had been making him wonder about the fit Trowa'd been throwing back when Zechs had been nabbed.

"We were _in_ uniform," Trowa retorted, indicating his cargo jeans and t-shirt pointedly. "And he," he gestured at Duo without looking at him, "was lacing his words with such subtle innuendos I wasn't sure if you knew what he was doing. Not only that, but I hadn't gotten _laid_...I get really _pissy_ when I go long enough without."

Duo smirked at him.

"You could tell?" Quatre muttered, blinking at Trowa.

"I didn't know _why_ he was fucking with you," the man retorted, starting to move again. "But he was."

"That was actually not long after..."

Quatre smacked Duo before he could say more, taking the lead again irritably.

"And, really," Trowa added happily, "he was eyeing Cardle."

Duo smirked at his friend, then rolled his eyes to Quatre.

Quatre rolled his own eyes, moving around one of the myriad walls strung up between the supporting poles.

Wufei looked up at him, his eyes still slightly unfocused...no...no, that wasn't his physical body.

"You okay?" Quatre muttered, moving around Heero's cot—the man was passed out and bandaged up anyway.

The...muzzy...look to the Asian man started to drain away as he smiled up at Quatre. A feeling of...relief or something...started to emanate from him as he looked to Duo and Trowa.

"Damn," Duo muttered, leaning down to be over Heero's ear. "You look like shit."

Heero grumbled in his sleep.

Duo smirked up at the others.

"Maxwell."

Duo turned to look at Timorre as the man came closer, then slowed to look at Quatre.

Quatre raised an eyebrow, sensing unease from the man.

Timorre raised his hands to about chest height, palms out and focused on Quatre. "I'm sorry."

Wufei snickered.

"What, now?" Quatre asked, looking around to his friend.

"I pointed out that we all wanted to strangle Duo for allying us with him," Wufei shrugged innocently. "Explained that Matty is working hard to keep Heero from going berserk on him...and that me and you...well...we aren't under those restrictions."

Quatre smirked at him, the concern and actions lining up as he looked back to the other man. He considered Jaden seriously, realizing with some amusement that the man actually _was_ concerned.

"You're not exhausted or comatose," Trowa noted in his own amusement, considering Quatre a moment, then looked around to Wufei. "Why am I not listed?"

"Because you've been playing build-him-up with the big-wigs," Wufei smirked. "You can no more haul off and deck him than Duo."

"Oh, but I _did_," Duo protested happily, moving to shake hands with the other male. "We beat the hell out of each other."

Timorre smiled slightly, looking back to Quatre nervously—he'd glanced at Trowa, but wasn't nearly so worried.

"I wish I had the bottled violence to just jump you," Quatre noted to the guy, feeling a little better. "It'd be fun."

The man blinked at him.

"This is Trowa Barton," Duo noted, indicated Trowa. "The guy you ignored all day...this is my lover, Quatre Winner...you've met Wufei in all his grumpy glory..."

"_Look_ at him!" Wufei protested, indicating Heero. "_Actually_ look at him. What's the day after tomorrow?"

"Today's...the...fourteenth?" Trowa looked to Duo curiously.

"Your birthday," Duo returned, realizing it and looking back to Wufei to blink. "The day after tomorrow is your birthday."

Timorre blinked as well.

Wufei settled back in his seat again, running a hand down his face.

Duo focused on Heero, considering the various cuts and abrasions on his face. He had bits of gauze taped to his face and on his neck...and on what they could see of his chest and arms. It wasn't like a full-body wrap or anything. His skin was plenty obvious, but there were bruises involved...and little cuts.

He'd been fully patched up, dosed with Remalene, and sleeping for an hour or three. What had he looked like when Wufei had found him?

Duo looked back to Wufei, studying his eyes seriously.

"It's...nice...to meet you," Timorre noted hesitantly to Trowa, offering his hand.

Trowa blinked at him a moment, then offered his hand as well. "Thank you for this," he noted, indicating the pavilion. "Thank you for helping us. By supper tonight, our space-hearts should be here and we won't have to rely on you so heavily."

"We still have to run them through the bases," Quatre cautioned. "Once I can get what I need...a speech," he looked to Duo.

Duo rolled his eyes, not fully appreciating that.

"I can set up a pretty quick wipe base by base."

"No rush," Timorre's tone was amused.

"He needs money, honey," Duo muttered, leaning over to kiss Quatre. "They need honey."

Quatre smacked at him as Duo laughed, backing off.

Timorre was blinking at them.

"Oooh," Duo bounced back to the man's side. "The fact that I'm bi is all pretty jokes until you see me...if we were in private I'd ravish him for your entertainment."

"I should ravish Qing for yours," the man retorted.

"Get a third to run the camera," Duo suggested.

Quatre smacked a hand to his face. They all knew Duo had videos on his phone that he himself had taken—it was only since they were wiping the LA base that it was realized, of course, but they all knew he did it.

"I should," the man muttered dryly, looking around for reactions.

"He actually _has_ videos," Wufei noted with amused interest from his seat. "Like...the one he sets for when I touch his phone is one he took himself."

Duo smirked at that, pulling the phone open...and jerking his head at the Asian male.

"I really...don't need to see..."

Wufei bounced around and took the new phone from the man—it was more silver than his old one had been, and Wufei was able to see his reflection in the back-side of it...and the audio was clearer.

Timorre stared helplessly at the front as Duo laughed wickedly, looking around to judge Quatre's reaction.

"How in the _hell_ did you talk them into that?" Trowa asked blankly, considering the screen with actual interest.

Wufei decided he disowned his friends.

"They didn't realize I was filming," Duo noted in amusement, rubbing at his face as he also considered the video. "I'd gotten a text from one of you right before, and they were...rather...distracted."

Trowa's smile flashed brightly at his friend.

Quatre yanked the phone from Wufei's grasp...and blinked down at it as the video changed...and gasped as he recognized the clip. "_Duo!_" He pressed the front of the thing to his shirt as Trowa _guffawed_ in disbelief.

Duo started laughing wickedly...and took his phone back almost delicately.

Timorre blinked a few more times, but Quatre'd moved fast enough to keep either of them from actually seeing the clip.

"Where's your decorum now?" Duo asked Trowa dryly, messing with the settings without acknowledging the accusatory glare he was receiving from his boyfriend.

"I left it in my other pants," Trowa noted, reaching for the phone. "Now I'm curious. How many of those videos do you actually have?"

Duo snickered and smacked Trowa's hand away as he tucked the phone back in his pocket.

"Right," Timorre muttered, raising an eyebrow at all of them. "Let's...change the subject, shall we?"

* * *

Heero opened his eyes and blinked around the unfamiliar room, feeling the various aches and pains in his muscles. He'd woken up in a car at one point, and tried to complain that he hated being hooked to an I.V. drip, but...who had it been? One of his friends...Wufei. Wufei had told him to stop complaining and pee before they had to give him a sponge bath.

He smiled slightly, blinking more. He'd woken up several times, actually...given a moment to think it over. He'd been in an open-air pavilion that was draped in mosquito netting, then he'd been in a truck of some sort...and then when they'd put the I.V. drip _in_.

So...how many days had it been?

He really did have to pee.

Heero pushed himself tiredly up, feeling the pull of tape from the various gauze bandages that'd been covering his wounds.

What room was this?

He looked around some more, realizing that his and Matty's bags were both on the floor between the door and closet. The placement was directly in his line of sight, and that suggested to him that it'd been Duo who thought of it. The idea to reassure him that nothing was wrong...they'd talked about that sort of thing before and had both agreed that they preferred _something_ familiar that wouldn't be in a bad situation.

Evidently they'd given him the liquid Remalene, too, because his wounds had that freshly-healed feeling to them. He pulled off a strip of gauze from his arm and considered the wound under it. It was beyond even scabbing. It might weep a little bit if he stressed it, but it was basically gone.

Where was Matty? Where were the others? They had to know he'd be waking up.

He shook his head, pulling the shirt off as he stood slowly. There was a bathroom, and he decided that a shower would be his next step. He doubted it'd be too long before someone came to check on him.

It didn't take him too long to strip and pull the gauze off his body. There was a gash on his back that looked like it'd gone deep, and that would need to be re-bandaged. Other than that, his bruises were gone and the smaller cuts were healed. He had a new speckling of scars that would probably fade over the next year, and his muscles ached.

The shower was nice. The heat of it loosened the muscles, and the feeling of being _clean_ was just nice after plowing a few trees under with his chest—and at least one broken rib.

Heero ran his hands over the sore spot, deciding that it was more like two. It didn't matter—the healing offered by the Remalene would have lessened most of that—let alone having the liquid form of the drug.

Being a brigadier had benefits, like people thinking _he_ needed the step up of healing.

He thought it was strange that he'd neither gotten any calls nor had anyone waiting for him when he left the bathroom. Where was Matty? Hell, where were his _friends?_

He pulled on some boxers, socks, and cargo-pants before dealing with the wound on his back. The gauze and tape were still in the bathroom from the last changing he'd had...and so was the trash from that. The others must have denied the cleaning people from coming in while he was unconscious—it'd probably been Duo again, though that one may have been Quatre or Wufei.

It was awkward to get the thing taped down, but he managed after straining both his ribs and shoulders to get into the awkward position...

And still, no one came.

Heero would almost call his mood at that petulant. He considered that and the emotions as he pulled on his shirt and badge, then focused on his boots. He was fully dressed with his wallet and phone as he moved into the hallway, and the fact that there were no guards outside the door made the feeling more prominent.

The jackasses had left him utterly alone and comatose under a Remalene-induced drugging, and hadn't given him any way to tell _where_ he was. He didn't even know if he was in Peru or not.

Jackasses.

He glowered as he moved back into the room, looking around until he found the map for the emergency exits.

That didn't give him a proper destination, and he wanted to annoy his friends just as much as he was annoyed. He wasn't going to text or call any of them first—Matty might be upset by that, but he could explain later that waking up alone like that was less than ideal.

...his phone alarm went off.

He pulled his phone out in surprise at the startling sound, blinking as it said he'd crossed the line, then looked down to the floor...and the sensors there.

Oh...okay.

'_You woke up?_' Duo asked almost instantly.

'_You sure you should be walking around?_' Matty's text was a breath of a second later. '_Wait there, me and my guys will come get you_.'

'_Your guys?_' Heero asked, wishing there was a way for text to portray a dry tone.

'_Damn hot trio_,' Matty agreed happily.

'_Heero?_' Duo asked.

'_Sorry,_' Heero returned quickly. '_Matty texted me, too. Where are you? ...and should I say I'm sleep walking?_'

'_I KNOW that was a stupid question_,' Duo retorted. '_I just wanted to let you know we didn't just leave you off in no-man's land. We're doing the screening of some of the top-notches from Brazil_.'

'_Are we in Brazil?_'

'_No, we're still in Rio. We got a bunch of...oh, Trowa got tired of waiting after you got Wing, so he cleared the space-hearts. We used your vote, in case it comes up you agree_.'

'_That's interesting_,' Heero retorted. '_You know very WELL that I agree. WHERE are you?_'

'_The meeting hall_.'

Heero stopped next to another emergency exit map—the things were posted at almost every corner with the path to the closest emergency exit highlighted. The maps of the section of the base they were posted in.

'_Anyway,_' the other continued, _'we've got Trowa playing speech-leader and the space-hearts are pulling guys out as we go. We're probably halfway done, and Matty's disappeared with his entourage. You need help with bandages or anything? You hungry?_'

'_Not really hungry, no...and I've showered and stuff. I'm alright...just a little sore. Why was I alone?_'

'_Because Quatre hadn't cleared a secure guard for Matty before we left, and Matty didn't take into account that me or Wufei know what we're talking about. The bottle says you should sleep for another four hours or something so he figured he had time_.'

'_He doesn't realize how many times I've been rendered_,' Heero smiled slightly at that.

'_And since I'm assuming he told you to wait for him and you're not, you might want to tell him what hall you're in_.'

'_It's not Wufei's birthday is it?_' Heero asked quickly...though he did see the time-stamp on his phone itself.

'_Yes it is_,' Duo retorted. '_He was spazzing that you hadn't woken up yet. That's inconsiderate of you, you know...but don't bitch at him. He's hung hard-core right now and Jin's done the lecture thing. When you didn't wake up before everyone went to bed last night, Fei evidently wandered off to a liquor store. He was puking most of the morning and is still half-miserable_.'

Heero sighed, pocketing his phone as he moved down another hall. That, fortunately, was an area of the base he recognized. It bothered him that they hadn't just woke him up if Wufei was that upset. He could have woken up fine and had a few conscious hours.

The commissary was buzzing quietly as he moved into it, amused at the wave of startled salutes his entrance caused. Finding some antacids for Wufei, a protein bar and sports-water for himself...everyone would have given him instant access to the cash register—including the person half done with his purchase. That had never been Heero's style, though, and he had a happy argument with the men waiting as the cashier finished the first transaction.

"Sir...I don't want..."

"I'm in utterly _no_ hurry," Heero cut him off, gesturing firmly at the man at the front of the line. "You're holding it up."

The guy froze, looking around, then darted out of the line...and so did the others.

Heero smacked a hand to his face, though he was amused. He put his purchases up and offered his badge to the reader. The cashier was amused and offered him the common salutations as he started off, waving at the others in the store.

It was irritating to have his rank back again, really. He wasn't _special_. He wasn't in a hurry, either.

"Heero!"

Heero looked up, smiling at the sound of his boyfriend's voice. The guy was to him in a moment...and that kiss put him in mind of returning to their room. He'd had two nights healing, and...

"Heero!" Blake squirmed up under his other arm as Matty stopped kissing him—that was surprising, and the immediate idea of the three of them off in a room was dismissed before he could embarrass either of the young men.

"Sir," one of the soldiers muttered proudly, saluting him...with a blue mark on his temple.

Ah. Matty's soldiers.

Heero grinned at the man, glad that Quatre'd finally got his shit together.

"Trowa's all impassioned," Blake bounced happily for his attention. "He's in there with the full dominance...waving his arms around and cowing everyone into silence."

"They were trying to bitch at him," Matty agreed, biting lightly at Heero's throat. "They were...but...he told them to shut the fuck up and has been giving everyone that look...so they're all silent as a painting. It was funny, because when our phones went off _everyone_ jumped."

Heero grinned at that.

It was nice to still be alive...the almost dying thing tended to be followed by the best days of his life.

...maybe Blake wouldn't mind waiting for him...

He grinned at the young man.

"We are _not_," Matty noted firmly, amused. "No showers, no abandoned rooms, no offices..."

"Just _our_ room," Heero protested as Blake moved back rather quickly.

"And we can't have him," Matty indicated Blake in amusement, "without Trowa, so don't even try to mention it."

Heero half giggled, slapping a hand to his mouth as he looked up to the skeptically amused soldiers.

Blake had his eyebrows up and was rubbing at one of them as he considered the nineteen year old. "He's busy yet," the guy noted. "It might take a while."

Matty started giggling.

"I could...keep us entertained...while we waited," Heero suggested...which made both young men start laughing.

"With all due respect, Brigadier," the one soldier noted, "I think even _you_ might have a hard time entertaining five."

Blake hadn't been, but at that, he started giggling hard.

Heero looked the three men over—the two who hadn't spoken yet looked embarrassed and uncertain.

"Oh," Heero purred, smirking at the leader, "I think I _could_...I _really_ think I _could_."

_That_ man started giggling.

...yeah. This was going to be a good day.

* * *

Wufei stared at the travel-size package of antacids that landed in front of him on the table, looking up to Heero as the entire room focused on the man.

"Ah, Brigadier Yuy," Trowa greeted pleasantly from the podium. "I'm so glad to see you're awake."

"Good...afternoon," Heero returned easily, looking the assemblage over. "Sorry to startle everyone."

Trowa grinned, looking around a moment as people realized he wanted their attention back. Heero sat beside his friend as he waited, then took a long drink off his sports-water and set it between them.

Wufei gave him a glumly amused look, opening the package as Trowa went back into whatever he'd been saying.

"Your friend is special," Matty whispered as he sat next to Heero, grabbing his hand. "He had all the soldiers giggling like girls."

"And you weren't?" Wufei returned, pouring the tabs into his hand. "I don't believe you."

Matty grinned wickedly as Blake sat down, running a hand down his face.

Wufei considered him a moment, seeing that he was avoiding looking at Heero, then looked back to the older male skeptically.

Heero grinned widely at him and shrugged nonchalantly. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Matty stifled his giggle behind a hand, shifting back in his seat so people would see Heero before him.

Wufei gave Heero another long look. He knew that whatever the man had said to the others was probably highly improper. To make grown men giggle, it was probably bawdy, too. He glanced back at the three men with the blue mark on their temples, noting that one was still flushed.

Right.

Wufei rolled his eyes, considering the tabs in his hand. He'd had two that morning, the last two from his bottle, and he could have up to seven before having to figure something else out. He was pretty sure those first two hadn't made a difference.

He felt like hell.

Heero shifted slightly, and Wufei looked up to him. The expression in his friend's eyes was steady and firm. There was no disappointment there, Jin had covered that angle all on his own...but Heero didn't approve. Wufei returned the look, then looked away.

He'd had a bad morning. He didn't know when he'd passed out, or how long he'd been in that state, but he was woken up by Jinli yelling at him to get in the fucking bathroom before he drowned himself. This was accompanied by being hauled into the bathroom and puking across the floor while his espoused seethed. The man had demanded why he'd even _drank_ to begin with, ranting about him having any alcohol at all let alone...and then he'd realized Wufei had left the rooms to get it.

Those were the reactions he hated. When the others had first started realizing he was drinking too much, they'd done that to him. They'd lectured him on how bad an idea drinking that much was, they'd demanded why he'd thought it was an okay thing to do...they'd been hurt. Seeing it in Jinli had torn him up, and the sheer unexpectedness of it had caused him some shock.

Jinli was sitting down the table from him, on the far side of Blake.

He'd been too miserable to care that he didn't have more than two pills after he'd puked. This was supposed to have been a good birthday, and so far he wanted to go curl up on his bed and be left alone—more than to sleep off the hangover. Adding to it that they were on mission and that Heero hadn't even been awake...

Though that last little bit had worked itself out. Wufei tossed the pills into his mouth, sucking slightly at the chalkiness of them before crunching in. He felt that gagging sensation again as he chewed, and grabbed the sports-water Heero'd left open between them. He took a swallow of that...then another. The pills provided him a slight easing of the ache...and he took a third swallow.

Heero yanked the bottle from him, a wide grin splitting his face.

Wufei blinked a few times, wiping at his mouth as he swallowed. The relief of the pills would take another fifteen minutes to soak in, though with how much of that he'd just tried to drink in one go, maybe not...

Wufei grinned back apologetically, feeling tension ease from between his shoulder blades. It was slight, and though he knew Heero wasn't fully well, he _was_ sitting there and awake.

He grinned a little more.

So _what_ had Heero said to make three grown men giggle and one to remain red for five or more minutes after...or rather, how lewd had it been. Blake'd had that same sort of look, so presumably it was an offer of an orgy.

Well, Heero wasn't in uniform...

He snorted at his friend, glancing to Blake a moment before turning to a soldier leaning against the door. He had a blue mark already, and he met eyes with Wufei. He took the bottle from Heero and shook it with a nod. The man blinked, then nodded and stepped toward the exit. Wufei waved again, which made the man pause, he rested a hand over his stomach...and shoved a finger in his mouth a bit. The guy blinked, then nodded and disappeared.

"Smooth," Heero all but breathed. "Couldn't you have written it down for him?"

"He was at the door," Wufei whispered back, then looked down a moment. "Thanks."

"Happy birthday," Heero returned. "I assume this should be done soon and we can go do something fun."

Wufei smiled slightly at that, nodding his head.

"And you'll hold Fei back while I kick Jin's ass, right?" Duo whispered from down the table.

Wufei glowered at him—Jinli's tirade hadn't ended until Duo came in the room in confusion. He'd taken one look at Wufei by the toilet and _yanked_ Jinli away from the bathroom door by the collar of his shirt. He'd snarled in the man's ear until the man stopped trying to fight away and hung his head...then stormed from the room.

It would have been okay...if Jin wasn't avoiding him. He'd tried to get Jin breakfast and coffee, but the man had breezed by him to grab it himself...and he'd tried to talk to him a few times but Jin was ignoring him. It had torn him up all morning, and it'd been while he'd been eating a bowl of rice that he'd decided to stop worrying about it.

He'd felt alone. His friends hadn't been giving him the cold shoulder at all, and Matty...well, he doubted Matty could _really_ be mad at him at all. The thing was how disappointed Jin had been...

Heero tossed the wrapper from the antacids down the table, and Jin jumped, turning to first glower at Wufei—who was blinking—then blink at Heero himself.

Heero flipped him off.

...that sort of made Wufei feel good.

Jinli glanced at Wufei, then looked away, shaking his head. He didn't look mad at least.

"You need to get your bitch in line," Heero breathed at Wufei. "Why don't, when we're done here, you take him off to your room and seduce him fifty ways from summer solstice?"

Wufei met his eyes in disbelief a moment, starting to feel a little warmth. He blinked at his friend as the guy waited for his response, then grinned slightly. "But I only know forty-nine."

"I can show you another one," Heero whispered back, grinning wickedly at him and glancing past him at Blake. "We'll have to go over the ones you know first, though."

Wufei had drawn himself up as the man spoke, and smacked him hard as he started to actually laugh.

It drew them all the attention in the room again as Heero clapped his hands to his mouth and looked guiltily up to Trowa.

Trowa considered them a long moment as Duo raised his eyebrows—even Jin was looking.

"Coughing, sorry," Heero rasped as if he was holding himself back from doing so. He pushed his chair back, grabbing his drink. "I'll get out so I don't interrupt anymore...Wufei? Matty? Blake?"


	5. Five

**Five**

Jinli was sitting next to Duo with his head bowed as Quatre moved tiredly into the meeting room. Trowa had finished his speech and was working on his laptop at the edge of the stage, and Duo likewise had his machine in front of him. Other than them and the tapping of Trowa's keys, the room was silent and empty.

Aside from wondering where everyone else had gone, Quatre realized that Jinli was actually upset. His emotions were in a tangle that ended up in depression, and he wasn't expecting Duo to pay him mind. If Duo hadn't made anything up that morning when he'd gone back to bitch to Quatre, the semi-blond wasn't surprised by that—just that Wufei would leave him out.

Though...maybe Wufei hadn't thought about it? Heero was awake and back in their sleeping area—Quatre hadn't bothered to actually look at the notices of people going through their line. The fact that Heero's being under had sent off a drinking binge in their Chinese friend suggested that him being awake would be met with equal enthusiasm...though leaving Jin out?

"Don't ask," Jinli muttered tiredly, looking up to him. "I'd rather not talk about it."

"You hurt him," Duo noted without looking up. "And that will piss Heero off ten times more than me, because we taught him that consideration was second nature and thoughtless anger was barbaric."

"Calmly," Quatre soothed his lover with a sigh, wrapping his arms around Duo's head and kissing his temple. "He understands that he overreacted, let him off the hook already."

Jinli looked away.

"What are you doing out here?" Duo returned, not acknowledging the words as he moved his head to kiss the underside of Quatre's chin.

"We're done," Quatre shrugged. "We found _one_ man..._one_ fucking man," he groaned and pressed his head into the small of Duo's neck...well, as best as he could from that angle. "I'm so pissed..."

"You letting your guys finish off?"

"I already ran the arrest and shit," Quatre explained. "When we got him, I let them take over the questioning again and ran the asshole through."

"Good," he muttered, focusing on closing things on his laptop. "Let's go back to the rooms. I want to get Wufei a cake...is that okay with _you_, Jin?" he hissed at the man without looking at him. "You're his espoused, _you_ should be taking care of this shit."

"Yes, _Duo_," Jinli snapped back, shoving his chair back. "In fact, I'll be the _good_ fucking _wife_ and pick it out myself." He turned away from the table, starting to storm from the room.

"The base doesn't have a _bakery_," Duo half-snarled after him, spinning in his seat to follow the other man's motion.

"Oh, you _weren't_ trying to get rid of me?" Jinli snapped back, his eyes both hurt and angry—hell _pissed_ worked just as well.

Duo started to stand up.

Quatre shoved his lover back in his seat. He felt the protective anger for Wufei's mental state, true, but he also knew that the internal squabbling over the matter would tear Wufei up worse.

Duo spluttered at him.

"Calm. your. shit." Quatre glared down at the other, then moved across the intervening space as he saw Jinli's startled look. "Come with me," Quatre suggested, gesturing the man after him, then looking across the room as he felt Trowa's attention. He studied the man a moment, nodded once, then moved from the room.

The silence that followed him was dark, but hopeful. Jinli didn't seem to have anything to say, though his emotions jumping around suggested otherwise. Quatre glanced back at him, noting that his hands were in his pockets and he was studying the ground.

Duo could be an ass.

Quatre sighed, pulling back into himself and hesitating a half step. He'd been unable to control himself for two weeks, and even though he'd had several opportunities to 'put it away', it still confused him a moment.

"You okay?" Jin asked hesitantly, slowing with him, his eyes concerned.

"I've been having a hard time," Quatre said quietly, putting his own hands in his pockets to mirror the other. He met the man's eyes briefly, falling into a more comfortable stride. "With how things've gone...I mean, my sister and Ethan...I need to call her...and then you all coming down here. Then Duo went and got himself _grabbed_," he ran a hand through his hair. "That's when it just went away," he made a face. "All my damn control." He snorted, glancing at the other man. "Since Duo's been back, I've been reading him."

Jinli blinked.

"I can't control it to one person, either," he noted glumly. "So you know, it's been a damn open channel—Blake is obnoxious."

Jin smiled slightly at him.

"But...I've been able to stop now. I stopped for a few hours last night—before Wufei left. I slept alone last night, and Duo was still there." He shook his head. "Kinda restful—and a lot less sex," he snickered. "Not that you care."

"Not particularly," Jinli agreed dryly, looking around. "Where are we going?"

"To let you be a good wife and get a cake," Quatre retorted, taking another hall.

"Duo said there's no bakery here," the man protested, blinking.

"There's not," Quatre agreed. "But there is a city here, and if we don't find anything good we can take the ferry and get him one from Brazil. You can say you went to a whole 'nother _country_ to get it for him—and if he protests that the river about a hundred feet from us is the border, you can note that as being beside the point."

Jinli smiled a small smile at that.

"I mean, you _do_ plan to apologize to him, don't you?" Quatre pressed, raising an eyebrow.

The man looked away glumly.

"If you're not you may as well spend your time figuring out where we are. Because if you're not you need to get away from me."

"I fucked up!" Jinli spat, hackles rising as he glowered up at the guy. "I'm sorry! Okay? Is that good enough for you?"

Quatre gave him a very long and level look. "I don't think _I_ am the one who needs the apology—though Duo might accept that one."

Jinli looked away darkly.

"At any rate," Quatre muttered, looking back to their path. "I spent today reading a bunch of boot-lickers. We found a whole of _one_. I think we'll have the same issue with the damn soldiers, too. I'm irritated, because it's the same as that fucked up network of his. It's too small to be obvious, and a sparse handful of men can disappear for legitimate reasons out of nowhere. If they're not due back until Monday, it takes until Monday to mark them as deserters or traitors. Hell, there are a few men back in LA that I haven't been able to fuckin' read because of maternal or paternal leave...or _vacation_ time."

Jinli nodded, looking toward another wall-map.

Quatre stopped at the next, noting that the man was actually reading it. The guy stopped almost gratefully, tracing the hall they were on with a fingertip. "What are you doing?"

"Debating if pissing you off would be a better bet than letting Wufei think I'm okay with him becoming an alcoholic."

Quatre stared at him, feeling his gut clench.

_This_ was the problem with outsiders.

Jinli sighed, turning back to glower back at him.

"Who said we let him think we're _okay_ with it?" Quatre couldn't pull his clenched teeth apart to ask.

Jin blinked at that, then looked away and shrugged almost indifferently.

"You have some fucking gull," Quatre snapped, pulling his hands from his pockets and crossing them over his chest. "Why do you _assume_ we let him think it's okay? Because we aren't tearing him down? Are you _kidding!_ Do you even _**realize**_ how bad disappointment rips him _**apart!**_"

The man blinked at him.

"If he thinks he's disappointed us, then what the hell is the _point?_ If he's trying his hardest to please the ones he loves, and they're _still_ disappointed...what's to keep him from just giving _up?_ What's to keep him _with_ us? You can pull the stick out your ass now, because coming with me to get him a _fucking_ cake is your last chance at grace. I'd say you could just pack up and head back to space, but Wufei won't let that happen—which will put him in an even harder spot, so we'll tolerate your ass...you might want to think what..."

"Don't _fucking_ threaten me!" Jinli snarled back, half-stepping forward. "I'm aware I pissed you all off, don't even _start_..."

Quatre raised his hands, having two thoughts at about the same time. The first was that a fight between them would be _bad_. If he out-and-out attacked the man, it'd take too many men to pull him off—or them apart. The second was that Jin had been having a hard-ass day without him slamming the point home.

Jin looked away, crossing his arms again. "Sorry...I'm just...stressed."

"You have no idea how hard it's been for us _and_ him," Quatre noted, starting slowly back up the hall. "It took him nearly running off on us to make us realize that...being disappointed in him...was the _least_ helpful thing we could persist with. We wanted him to know we disapproved, but there are _other_ ways of doing it than _bitching_ at him. I still don't know _how_ he got to the point last night that he went and _bought_ alcohol...we'll get to talking about it later or tomorrow, I'm sure—but none of us are going to touch it tonight. If the assholes didn't come collect you, it doesn't mean they're all superbly pissed at you. It means they got distracted and lost track of time. I'm assuming it's either one of those games Matty and Blake have, a movie, or some _stupid_ ass game."

Jinli nodded, moving slowly closer to him as they neared the outer-wall.

"Duo's the only one who's done it so far," he noted quietly, "but Heero likes that...memory game...too. The one where they program their phones with stupid-ass locks? And on top of that, the first three soldiers on duty with Matty...well, the guy who was most forward of them...he's a bit like Duo. He'll say _shit_ out of nowhere, stick his foot in his mouth, and feel absolutely no shame in digging himself out or in deeper. You put all that together with Wufei wanting to forget what he did and Heero just out of his coma...I'm sure they'll be loud and rambunctious by the time we get in, and lord-knows putting sugar in _that_ mix might make something explode...but it will be a happy last breath."

Jin raised his eyes to study Quatre a long moment.

"If you let it drop," Quatre said quietly, "he will, too. Of that, you can be sure."

Jin nodded again.

"Hopefully," Quatre added, shoving into an open room with a wall of windows...facing a parking-lot. "I can get us a car and find a bakery in ten minutes...because if not, the others may be a little upset with us."

* * *

Jin wanted to write something like 'I'm an ass' on the cake, but everyone they seemed to come across knew Chinese. Besides, if Quatre wasn't kidding, that meant Wufei wouldn't fully appreciate it. It was bad enough that Quatre nearly got the woman to use "beloved" instead of Wufei's name—though in the end, Jin decided to go with the more amusing and familiar name of 'Fian.'

He studied the cake in his lap uncertainly as they went, aware of something else. He'd picked what he'd known to be Wufei's preferred cake. It was the cake both their mothers had made them, and one he'd known Wufei to go to a store to buy before he'd gone off for his schooling. It hadn't even been a hesitation for him, either, but while he'd agonized over what to have the woman behind the counter write, Quatre had casually noted that Wufei usually picked or wanted white with chocolate...not white chocolate.

So...what was the reaction going to be?

Jinli hated not knowing, and hated that he'd started Wufei's birthday off with bitching. It was one of those things where he wanted to slam his head against any given wall...and then Duo'd taken the fuckin' cake _all_ day. As if his own internal berating wasn't really enough.

"Um...Brigadier Winner?"

The pair slowed to see a pretty woman looking up at them with very wide and nervous eyes.

"Yes?" Quatre returned casually, noting the package she had in her hands.

"Um...I...I know that...um," she licked her lips and drew herself up. "I know that Brigadier Chang doesn't know me...but today is his birthday," she glanced at the cake Jin was holding. "And...a few of the girls in my unit decided to pitch in and...well...here." She set two packages in his arms. "Sorry, bye!"

And she ran.

Jinli blinked.

"Sorry, bye?" Quatre echoed, watching her disappear down another hall. "I don't suppose you got her name, did you?"

"It started with an S?" Jin offered.

Quatre snorted at that, looking down to the gifts and shaking his head. "My birthday is going to be annoying back home, isn't it?"

They started walking again.

"Um...Brigadier Winner?"

Quatre looked up at a man this time, a hand-cart in front of him. Quatre raised his eyebrows.

"I'm not sure how the men...or women...found out," he said quietly, "but it's gotten around base that today is Brigadier Chang's birthday...and..." he also glanced at the cake. "Well...these have been showing up down in central all day." He shoved the handcart forward for them to see better. It was half-full of wrapped packages...and a quarter full of gift-baskets.

Quatre blinked down at the contents a long moment, then sighed and put the presents he was holding into it. "I'll just take this in," he said quietly, taking control of the thing. "I'll let Chang know—thank you, soldier."

The man saluted him, smiled almost knowingly at Jinli, then turned and walked away.

Jinli raised an eyebrow, but they were at the end of their hall. He was happy to see that someone had taken his suggestion of a separation seriously, too. There was a rice-curtain divider with dark paper set up between the inner hall and the outer. He could hear laughter, too.

"This is nice," Quatre noted, stopping at the divide to start plucking cards out of the thing...and picking up the presents from the floor. "That was a good idea you had."

Jinli smiled slightly at him, moving through the thing—there were actually two. They were both longer than half the hallway, and set enough apart for them to get through without issue without letting the general populace see into their area.

"Let me in first," Quatre suggested, moving around him carefully as he headed for their room—it had amused Trowa to no-end that Wufei and Jinli had been put in the same room with one bed...but it wasn't like any of them had been sleeping alone.

"Quatre!" Wufei chirped happily. "What is...are those for _me?_" he sounded astounded.

"Either people actually _like_ you," Quatre retorted, "or are bootlickers—I'm inclined to say the latter."

Wufei laughed at that, then focused on Jinli. His eyes went over the cake, then up to Jin's face.

Jin smiled slightly at him, proffering the thing.

"Did you get candles?" Matty demanded, bouncing forward to take the cake. "You didn't did you? You totally _suck_...or you should..." he cackled as Wufei swatted at him, diving off to one side in a way that suggested he'd known it'd happen.

"I still say you let Heero show you his ninety-nine ways," Blake chirped.

"I know a hundred," Trowa noted dryly from where he was sitting on the bed. He had Blake more or less in his lap, arms looped loosely around the younger male's waist.

"You and Heero decided that your hundredth was really a combination of two that didn't count as its own," Matty reminded them happily.

Trowa's eyes were sparkling as he looked back to Jinli.

"Ooh, look!" Matty proclaimed, starting to spin toward Blake with the cake...but Wufei swiped it from him. "Hey!"

"It's _my_ cake," Wufei retorted, laughing as he read the name on it...then falling quiet.

"I told him you liked white cake with chocolate icing," Quatre noted almost pointedly. He'd gone to Duo upon entering the room, and was sitting on his lover's lap. Duo and Heero were sitting across from each other over a little table with three chairs.

Wufei raised his eyes from the cake, swallowing as he met Jin's eyes.

Jin smiled a lopsided smile, figuring it _had_ been a mistake.

"Thank you," Wufei said quietly, looking back down to the thing...and swallowing hard.

"It's...what you...what you got," Jinli explained, swallowing himself. He could almost _feel_ the grief.

He _was_ an ass...god...

Wufei wiped at his eyes, starting to laugh a little, then moved over to hug Jin hard.

"What is it?" Heero asked blankly.

Jinli squeezed his friend back, realizing that they'd probably cry tonight—after everyone else left and it was just the two of them. Hell, they may as well have been lovers.

"I used to order this," Wufei explained, spinning away from Jin to show the cake to Heero as he wiped at his eyes with his free hand again. "White chocolate...I haven't had it in _years_."

"Ooh, that sounds yummy," Matty bounced up around Wufei, reaching for the cake, but Wufei was taller, and he raised it out of the young man's reach.

"What is all this?"

Jinli started, turning to look at Blake in confusion. Trowa was sitting alone on the bed, and Blake was poking through the hand-cart.

"Happy birthday Brigadier..." the twenty-year-old read, snickering. "They spelled Brigadier wrong. Brigader. Happy birthday Brigader..." he started laughing more.

"Hey!" Wufei protested, turning back to the cart and passing the cake to Jinli. "Those are mine! I'm the Brigader here!"

Blake and Matty both started laughing at that, and Matty followed after to join in the nosing of packages.

"The guy who gave me the cart gave Jinli a _very_ interesting look," Quatre noted happily. "Why don't you see what's in those presents?"

Wufei's eyes flashed to delight before he started pulling the baskets out and passing them to the youths. The pair were uncertain at first, then decided on the top of the dresser to the side.

"Bath salts?" Wufei asked blankly, straightening as he looked at one package in disbelief. "Who the hell gives a brigadier _bath_ salts?"

"A romantic soak?" Heero offered.

"I like that idea," Matty bounced, looking to Heero with a smile.

Jinli snorted, moving over to the table and set the cake on top of that. He smiled slightly at the man, offering his hand. It was good to see Heero on his feet again.

"Look!" Wufei chirped. "White hot chocolate! Jin! They thought of you!" he laughed more.

Jinli turned from shaking Heero's hand to rejoin his friend. He was glad he hadn't gone with the apology. Wufei was in a better mood than he had been in for days. He pulled out a few of the wrapped gifts, shaking one of them near his ear, then turned and looked solemnly to Quatre.

Quatre raised his eyebrows skeptically.

"Are these gifts safe for me to open?" he asked in a nearly sincere tone.

"Probably not in mixed company," Quatre returned in amusement. "But we're all men here, right, Jin?"

"What do you mean by that?" Jinli demanded, blinking a few times.

Wufei laughed, pulling the cart with him so he could sit at the foot of the bed...and start unwrapping.

Jinli followed at a more sedate pace, wondering what the hell was up.

"Those top two were from a cute girl in the hall," Quatre noted, indicating the things. "She said she and the girls from her unit bought them, sorry, bye."

Wufei grinned at that...and ripped into the top one.

It was a plastic-tube of t-shirts. They were different colors, mostly subdued.

"That's...neat," Wufei muttered, turning the thing to read it. "Pre-shrunk, washed, and cleaned...interesting." He blinked at the label.

"Presumably, washed and cleaned are two different steps," Trowa noted.

"You're helpful," Wufei shot back happily, tossing the package to Jinli as he sat next to him...and started laughing. "What the _fuck?_"

"What?" Jin asked, noting a magazine.

Wufei laughed even harder, pulling the wrapping all the way off as he looked sidelong at Jin a moment...and laughed harder.

"What is it?" Duo asked, sitting forward slightly. "What's funny?"

"_You_ can have it," Wufei retorted, tossing the thing over. "Lord knows, you're into the porn enough..."

Jin stared at him.

"_What?_" Matty demanded...and he and Blake were in front of Duo almost as soon as the man caught it...and started laughing.

"What was it?" Jin asked blankly.

"Masculine Toys," Duo noted eyebrows arching in amusement. "Comes with free DVD...wow. They went all-out for you, Fei...ooh..." he'd flipped it open and was looking at one side. Quatre wasn't looking at the thing, rolling his eyes as the younger men leaned forward to look almost avidly...and started giggling.

Heero snickered. "We have the DVD player, you know."

Duo and Matty both laughed at that.

Jin wondered how badly his face showed his blush, looking back to Wufei.

Wufei grinned at him, tossing him a book. It was...philosophy? A philosophy book? What the _hell_...

"Don't lose that," Wufei suggested, starting on yet another package. "I want to know who the hell profiled me so I can kick their ass...I've seen that book a few times," he indicated the thing. "But I never get around to reading, so I haven't bothered yet."

"You didn't have anything to do with this, did you?" Jinli asked Quatre almost hesitantly as Duo pretended he wasn't going to show the younger men a picture. It sounded like he was saying something about being 'too indecent for young eyes.'

"No," Quatre retorted, then sniffed—it made Matty's hair move from his face. He snorted, shoving the book down so the pair'd back off.

"Hey!" Duo protested.

Matty _squeaked_, slapping his hands to his mouth as Blake's jaw dropped open.

...their reactions made him very curious as to _what_ there could be a picture of.

"Heero!" Matty ripped the magazine from Duo's hands and moved around the table to show him. "Look! Pink fuzzy cuffs!"

Heero's eyebrows arched a moment, and he tilted his head to one side.

"You really don't want to ask," Wufei noted, looking to Jin as he tossed a cologne-set to the side. It wasn't an expensive one by any means. "If you look, you'll wish you hadn't—I've seen Duo squeak over pictures before, and when I gave in and asked..." he shook his head, looking across the room to Duo, who'd plucked the magazine back from Heero's hands. Quatre'd removed himself, and the two younger were trying to cluster even closer.

"You were intrigued and you know it," Duo noted, glancing up at Wufei as he turned to another page.

"Only to how he could _bend_ that way," Wufei retorted. "And I don't think it was from _yoga_."

Duo laughed delightedly.

Wufei grinned at Jin a moment, leaning down again and pulling out something with weight to it. He blinked a moment, then tore of the paper...and _stared_.

"What?" Jin asked, considering what he could see of the clear liquid. It looked sort of like massage oil or something. Not a big bottle of it, either.

"Is that..." Quatre started, moving forward.

"_Lube!_" Trowa _guffawed_ his laughter, diving forward to claim the bottle from Wufei's hand. "I get it! We get it!"

Wufei looked up to Jin almost incredulously.

Jinli squeezed his eyes shut in disbelief, wondering just how much of that sort of thing was _in_ those gifts.

"I get the next bottle if Duo gets the magazine," Heero noted happily. "Straight friends should play gay more often...this is fun."

Wufei flashed him a grin, pulling out another package. "I will get you so much _female_ paraphernalia on your birthday that you won't have _anyone_ to give it to."

"But Reg," Duo noted with a wicked grin, looking up and around to them all. His eyes brightened as Quatre moved closer to the bed. "Did I tell you that I _slept_ with her?"

They all focused on him in disbelief.

"I was at her house and we were drinking—I thought I'd told her _who_ I was...but I guess I full-on seduced her and just kinda...left." He snickered, looking around to Quatre. "I thought she was avoiding me because what I'd said."

Trowa started laughing.

"Oh, look," Wufei noted dryly, showing them all a box of small bottles. "Trial sizes."

Jinli smacked a hand to his face as Heero perked up.

"_Hey!_" Duo protested as Wufei tossed the thing to the Japanese man. "_We_ get the next one!"

"By all means," Quatre noted dryly. "Happy birthday, Wufei, give me your lube."

...and after a very long and very disbelieving look to the semi-blond, they _all_ started laughing. Hard.

* * *

Wufei smiled tiredly as Jinli shut the door to their room and flicked off the light, watching as he moved toward the bathroom. The night had been fun, and he was pleasantly tired. He wasn't going to admit it to anyone, really, but the presents and cards from the men made him feel _good_. Even the stupid sex-stuff that'd been sprinkled through the items. Someone cared enough about him to try and help him have a good time with his supposed husband.

"What are you grinning at?" Jin asked dryly, dropping his jeans and starting to unwrap one of the packages of pajamas Wufei'd gotten.

"If we were actually a couple," he returned, "we'd be having a _really_ good night—it's my birthday, all our friends are gone...I was just given more porn or porn accessories than I've _ever_ paid for..."

Jinli snorted at him.

"I just wish that not everyone _knew_ we were espoused," he added, yawning and turning over. "I'd _like_ to get laid."

"I know," Jin agreed dryly, pulling the pants on and stretching. "God...I haven't done my forms in forever."

"There's enough room there," Wufei reassured him. "I've been doing mine a bit."

The other nodded, stretching some more. "You know...I was an ass this morning, right?"

"I was an ass last night," Wufei agreed quietly.

"I shouldn't have torn your head off," Jinli added. "I overreacted..."

"Its fine," Wufei cut him off, forestalling the apology. "Don't worry about it..."

"No," Jinli returned, focusing on him seriously—the only light in the room was coming from the bathroom, and the man's face looked very...angsty.

Wufei smiled a bit as the descriptor struck him. "I wanted to apologize myself," he said quietly. "I know...I know I shouldn't drink...but..." he looked away a moment.

"Do you think..._we_ should quit?" Jinli asked quietly. "Just drop alcohol entirely for a while?"

"I don't think I can," Wufei said quietly, not looking at him.

"You're strong," Jinli said quietly. "You're smart...powerful. You can do whatever you _want_ to do. You don't need a crutch—shit, you _saved_ the damn world."

Wufei met his eyes, blinking.

Jinli sighed, shaking his head and looking around the room, then sighed again. "I didn't realize you'd been avoiding the cake," he added. "We got into the bakery, and I just..."

"It's what you know," Wufei reassured him. "It surprised me, but...it was _damn_ good cake, wasn't it? It's easier now...to remember stuff? Is it for you?"

Jin shrugged and nodded. He hadn't had the same issues Wufei'd had, and he'd had friends who'd lost the same as he. Wufei'd been alone and _making_ himself alone. It'd been hard for all of them, but undoubtedly harder for Wufei. He didn't see that as being necessary to add, though, and let the matter stand.

"I'm...scared," Wufei admitted quietly, looking toward the bathroom. "I...I'm scared to find the others."

"We all wanted you with us," Jinli said quietly.

"It's been _years_," Wufei reminded him quietly. "Me and you...we were more like brothers than friends. Our relationship...I _missed_ you...a lot."

"I missed you," Jinli reassured him. "We all did...and they all _do_. I think we need to all meet at once, you know."

Wufei looked away, his insides churning.

"But we don't need to talk about that," Jin muttered, bending forward. "We're not done with Gerrange yet. What do you think? Should we give Matty and Heero those bath-salts? I know _I_ won't use them."

"We?" Wufei asked, focusing happily on the change. "I could have sworn it was _my_ birthday, husband."

"And considering how much lube and porn you got, bath salts were most likely for _us_. But if you want to use them..."

Wufei laughed at that, settling back down where he lay. "Are you actually going to _do_ your forms, or are you trying to entice me into one of them hundred ways of seduction we couldn't seem to escape all night?"

"Entice?" Jinli demanded, straightening and turning to focus on the man. "Please tell me you did _not_ just say _entice_."

Wufei snickered.

Jinli huffed at him...but decided to leave it, and went back to what he was doing.


	6. Six

**Six**

Trowa shifted slightly where he sat, wishing Wufei would get the point and move away a bit, then shifted again. They were in a large meeting hall with people talking about how best to proceed with catching Obsidian and the roaches, but there was no real point to them _being_ there. The people all had ideas, but none of them had struck as overly brilliant.

...Wufei's hand was clutching his shirt.

Trowa focused on the hand in disbelief, then followed the arm...to the sleeping Asian man.

He'd fallen asleep. He had _fallen_ asleep _on_ Trowa.

Duo, with a light smirk, glanced sidelong at Trowa.

'Fuck you,' Trowa mouthed.

'My boyfriend,' Duo retorted with a shrug.

Trowa tried not to snicker at that.

Quatre looked around to them in a way that suggested he'd missed the commentary but had noticed the conversation. He blinked at Trowa a moment, then looked down to Wufei's hand as well. You could see the interest bring him back to life as he followed Wufei's one grasping hand to the sleeping man himself.

He blinked.

Heero shifted forward casually so he could see around Trowa, blinking at Wufei, then looking down the line to Duo and Quatre.

Quatre smirked slightly, then sat back quickly.

Duo ran a hand down his face, looking back to the speaker.

Trowa looked to Heero, raising a very slight eyebrow—Heero's eyes were already sparkling.

No...none of them got why Wufei would snuggle with Trowa, because he wasn't doing it with anyone else. The hand thing seemed very...intimate...to Trowa, though. He didn't mind them seeing that the guy was sleeping against him, but he actually wished they hadn't seen that. It didn't seem really fair, but there wasn't a lot else to do about it.

"Hey," he whispered, moving his shoulder slightly.

Wufei blinked, opening his eyes to look around the room without moving his head, then let go of Trowa's shirt. He shifted back properly onto his own seat, rubbing at his eyes before yawning hugely. He rubbed at his face again, then looked toward Duo and Quatre—both of them pretended not to notice. Wufei looked back to Trowa and grinned a bit foolishly, then looked down to Heero. Heero was giving him a curious look.

'Sorry,' Wufei mouthed to Trowa.

Trowa nodded at him, stretching out his shoulder. Duo would have just let him sleep; he should have just laid on Duo.

'You bored?' Wufei asked curiously.

Trowa shrugged.

'Good enough for me,' Wufei stood, stretching very slightly as the speaker stuttered to an uncertain silence. "I'll tell you what we're gonna do," Wufei noted, moving down the aisle as Duo took a breath that looked like he wanted to smack himself in the face. "We're going to get the troops together, bitch at them for not scrambling to be read first...and then we're going to form small parties of people from any region we suspect, and let them go to town."

"Sir, that's hardly..."

"Hardly as complicated as you want?" Wufei asked with interest, moving up the side of the room. "Hardly as time-taking as your plan? I don't get it. The whole point is to flush the fuckers into the open and arrest them...right? All the aerial support we should need will be the satellite feeds Barton has been accessing already. We don't need to waste money on aerial sweeps that show nothing. Until we feel we need them, that sort of support should be on standby."

Trowa blinked, startled. He hadn't been listening to the lecture—and Wufei knew it was about aerial sweeps?

"As for...the other plans that have been put up today..." Wufei hesitated thoughtfully. "They're all good," he shrugged. "Mostly they're all simple, and overall," he stopped beside the podium to look at the assemblage, "they're all valid. We know that. We were supposed to hear one or two suggestions today and figure out which was the best, but then like, twenty people decided that their one step variants needed to be their own blasted plan...and I honestly fell asleep. Do you have any idea how bad form that is?" he looked everyone over as they exchanged looks. "So that should tell you that this is taking too long. As we speak, my espoused is arranging a grid pattern through the satellite imagery that was taken as soon as the sun came up this morning. Yuy's espoused is collecting the information of who came from what area. As soon as they get back to us, we'll start what I suggested."

A murmur went through the group.

"We came up with this plan this morning," Wufei pointed out. "But we knew we were planning to do this today, so we started our background idea into action and figured it could be capped if a better plan came up. Either way things were started, and a change of plans usually isn't that hard to effect. So...ladies and gentlemen of the assemblage, make sure your men have been turning in the requested information and we'll send out a general call when we have things organized. Thank you. Good day."

Most of the room stood and stretched, sighing in relief and muttering cordially to each other...but there were a few people who were bitching. Those people were glaring after the five Brigadiers—and had been confused why they hadn't took the front-most rows anyway.

Heero's phone beeped.

"Oh, look," Heero muttered, "Matty got all the information and they're starting to give the quadrants numbers..." he smiled fondly, looking around to Trowa.

"Quadrants, huh?" Trowa asked happily. "You're right, he is cute."

Heero's eyebrow quirked.

Trowa laughed happily at that, stretching his arm again. "You're heavy," he informed Wufei.

"You're the one who let me do it," Wufei argued easily. "I have no sympathy."

* * *

Blake and Matty were buzzing around the conference room like they belonged there as Matty's soldiers organized papers. Jinli had a large map laid in front of him...that had a long single dowel sticking out of the middle of it. His eyes were sparkling as he looked around to the group of them, and Matty paused to look up as well. He'd stopped writing on the electronic clipboard on the table in front of him to do it, and his face lit up as he bounced across the room to hug and kiss Heero.

"What are you doing?" Trowa asked Blake curiously as the young man moved to lean against him—he had an electronic clipboard, too. He, however, was carrying his.

"Watch," Blake muttered, clicking a few of the options on the clipboard. A 3-D image of the jungle rose from the thing, holograph-style.

"You've never played with one of these before, have you?" Trowa accused, taking the thing from him to consider the depth.

"Show him," Jinli suggested, his eyes still sparkling as he looked back to Wufei.

Blake pulled the clipboard down slightly and tapped the measure option.

...Eighty feet.

Wufei smacked a hand to his face as Jinli started laughing delightedly.

"That's like...the lowest level of canopy," Quatre protested, though he was also grinning. The men who'd followed them from the conference room started entering, though, and Blake glanced at them and took the clipboard back.

"This part is nearly done," Matty informed Heero, bouncing back to the table. He clicked a few things on his clipboard, looking up to Jinli.

"Right," Jinli shook his head, focusing on the lines he was laying out—with metallic string.

"What are you guys _doing?_" Heero asked blankly, looking that over.

"We saw that the base had some unused clipboards," Jinli explained, "so we decided to network'em," he indicated the one Blake had. "We got the scans from this morning loaded on them and printed out," he pointed at the paper laying across the large table in front of him. "And I've been using this stuff," he showed the string, "to trace everything out. We can get this loaded on a few more clipboards or laptops when we've finished, and it'll be all...high tech and stuff."

"Hm," Trowa took Blake's, then clicked through a few security locks. They all recognized him and his clearance immediately since the clipboard had the same AS technology as the phones. "I'm going to clear your...uh...low-measure," he noted to Jinli. The guy grinned at him. "I'll actually sync it up with the local stats and we'll have a real map."

"You can do that?" Blake asked, blinking up at him in amazement.

"The land has been...contoured?" Trowa looked to his lover a moment as he tried to think of a better word, then smiled and kissed the young man. "Hi."

Blake smiled back at him.

"Are you the gentlemen who startled us all with a foot-long orange frog?" one of the men asked, moving closer with a grin on his face.

Blake gave him an interested look, looking back to Trowa.

"The background on my laptop," Trowa supplied dryly.

Blake _grinned_ at him, then smiled abashedly at the man near him. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize anyone else would see it."

"I had to load it up to show some information on screen the other day," Trowa explained, realizing that with the rush, he'd neglected to say. "There were like, a hundred people in there, and the background settings were so deep in your pictures that I just gave it up and went back to what I was doing."

Blake laughed happily at that, catching his hand briefly, then turned to the man who'd approached him. "My apologies."

"Forgive me for prying," the man noted, "but wouldn't it be easier for you to...become espoused?"

"He doesn't want to," Trowa returned casually, clicking through a few more options, then moving past them toward the table. "Matty, I need you to go into the options and..."

Blake watched him go, then looked back to the other man.

The guy bowed his head respectfully, then took a few steps back.

"Good afternoon," Jinli greeted as the line of people entering finally subsided. There were a fair few of the men with the blue mark on their temple. "I apologize for keeping you waiting, but we thought to network the program," he indicated the clipboards. "We're nearly done."

"And you are?" someone asked.

"Me?" Jin blinked up at him. "I'm Wong-Chang Jinli."

Wufei smirked very slightly at him.

"This is Wi...uh, Mattox Williams-Yuy."

"My name doesn't sound right in the old style," Matty noted in amusement.

Jin grinned briefly at him. "Williams-Yuy Mattox...it doesn't really sound _Asian_...and you _are_."

"Am I really?" Matty asked curiously in Chinese. "What a splendid thing."

Jinli, and a fair few others in the room, laughed at that.

"And this is Blake Kiardane," Jin added, indicating Blake. "We've been setting up the search stuff this morning—I'm gonna let my husband do the talking now."

Wufei would have snickered at that if he weren't suddenly the center of attention. He considered Jinli a long moment, then smacked his ass as he turned. Jinli couldn't properly retaliate without either losing the line he was making or making a huge scene...so he huffed at the other male.

More people sniggered.

"I don't know what he wants me to say," Wufei noted skeptically, looking back to the table. "Map," he indicated the thing, then Trowa and Matty, "clipboard. It's pretty straightforward."

Jinli rolled his eyes, then refocused.

"How many sections are you making up?" someone asked, stepping forward to see the map better.

"Well...more than sixteen," Wufei noted, looking down.

"_Wufei_," Jinli protested.

Wufei snickered happily at that, his eyes sparkling as he looked back to the people. "It looks to be about forty-eight."

"We have seventy units ready," someone else protested. "Couldn't you just..."

"We could chase them all over without finding them if they switch from quadrant to quadrant," Matty pointed out seriously, glancing up. "We figure that this way, there can be a main line moving out and they can leave people behind to watch each section. Other than that, we have no idea how to go about finding Obsidian, especially with the giant hole in the side of it—so we didn't want to use all the men here."

"So you're talking about...a line moving out," someone moved up to indicate the one side of the map, "leaving people behind...and as they go and secure, they just extend an inner line?"

Matty nodded. "That should leave a few units free to do whatever else you guys might need them to. I mean...we'll need people here for a jail of some sort, right? We can't just toss'em all in a hole."

"It'd make it go faster," Blake noted dryly.

A few more people snickered at that.

"So...why did you even let us all go make speeches?" someone else demanded.

"We were under the impression," Duo pointed out, "that there were going to be two or three people with varying ideas on how to do this," he indicated the map. "We didn't realize it was going to be a spectacle."

"I'm getting lunch for us," Quatre noted, turning from his friends to look at the rest. "We'll just all call this lunch, and then we can reconvene and get this started—you'll be done by then, Jin?"

"Should be," Jinli agreed easily, brushing his hair back from his face. "Then we can start doling out the who-goes-where." He raised his eyes to see the men looking at him skeptically. He hadn't meant to say it in a way that stepped on toes, but he hadn't planned to have a ton of brass piled on him either. "I was trying to keep the information flow set up so we could have either Heero or Trowa deciding that stuff."

"We'll figure out which one of us does it after we eat," Heero reassured him, then turned to look around at the various men with a slightly raised eyebrow. "Thank you, your help is invaluable, Jinli."

"Thank you, Heero. We all do what we can." Jin focused back on what he was doing.

Quatre started for the door, and after a few moments, everyone else followed.

"We do good, boss-man?" Jin asked Duo casually when it was just them again.

"Why am _I_ boss-man?" Duo complained, moving around to drop in a chair.

"Because I'm not talking to Fei," Jin explained. "He totally smacked my ass for everyone to see." He tacked his string down.

"But, like, Heero and Tro are _right_ here. Why me?"

"You're my bestest friend," Jin supplied, straightening to both meet eyes and start measuring out more string.

Duo considered that a moment, then met Jinli's eyes. "Well," he decided, "you could have just done all this on a laptop," he indicated the table.

"Not and assign units manually," Blake retorted, going to take his own seat. He grinned at Trowa. "You didn't tell me about the background."

Trowa dropped next to him. "Things got busy. First we went after Wing, then we had to deal with Heero...now everything else is falling in-line. The picture and my trying to deal with it got a good laugh, and I was able to let them all know I'm with you."

Blake smiled cutely for him, leaning over so they were close. In about a second, as far as they were concerned, there was no one else in the room but them.

Duo harrumphed, then shifted back where he sat to close his eyes and cross his arms.

"This is nice," Wufei complimented Jin, moving around the table. "Very neat."

Jin grinned a bit in appreciation of that, then remembered he wasn't talking to the man.

Wufei considered that a moment, then glanced at Heero. "I'm glad you're here," he added. "I forgot what it was like to have a good wing-man."

Heero grinned at his friend.

"Heero," Jinli asked sweetly, "would you mind telling a certain gentleman that I'm still not speaking to him?"

"Who?" the Japanese man asked with a perfectly straight face. "You seeing other dudes? Fei might get jealous."

Jinli _glowered_ at Heero for that, and Duo started laughing.

* * *

It didn't take long after Duo stopped laughing for Heero to step in and start helping Jin. The man had informed them all that he wasn't talking to Heero either, so he happily started calling the man Yuy instead. It was the sort of childish play Heero indulged in, so he joined in Wufei's game of piling on compliments. The main difference between them being that Heero was able to get straight men into bed.

Jin was giving him a seriously uncertain look when Quatre walked in.

"By that expression on your face," Quatre noted as he set the bags down on the table, "I feel I should tell you that Heero's feeling mischief. What are you doing?" he demanded of his friend pointedly.

Heero laughed delightedly, bouncing over to him. He rested a hand briefly on Quatre's shoulder, casting him a glance with his eyes alone, then smiled almost flirtatiously and took one of the boxes. He was away just as fast as he'd shown up, dropping in his chair next to Matty.

Matty gave him a _look_.

Quatre blinked after him, looking around to Duo.

Duo snickered, waving it away.

"That was just mischief," Quatre informed them all, seeming startled. "But _damn_..."

"I could do it if you wanted me to," Duo noted dryly.

"Don't _you_ be bitchy," Quatre gave him another startled look. "Heero...is that how you do it? Is it always mischief?"

"Depends on the guy," Heero returned, grinning wickedly. "Usually it was more lust."

Quatre thought about that.

"Sorry, but I don't lust after you, so I can't properly...uh...distract you."

"I wonder _why_," Matty noted dryly.

"Why are _you_ being bitchy now of all times? I outright came-_on_ to Wufei and you rolled your eyes at me—but when you're watching me fuck around...you get possessive?"

Matty grinned and rolled his eyes at him, taking the food.

Heero huffed mildly at that, then considered what was inside the box with interest.

"So how's it going?" Quatre asked, looking to Jinli as he started laying stuff across the edge of the table. "Done?"

"One more line," Jin returned, starting to unwind the string again. "What did you get?"

Quatre shrugged, spinning a box around the edge at him. "A bunch of tacos. I got the basics we all like on it, then a bunch of sides," he pulled out another box. "So...here."

"Thanks," Matty muttered, bouncing up to gather another box and some of the toppings.

"No drinks?" Blake asked curiously.

"No," Quatre agreed. "I figure we can send runners to pick those up here—the guy at the taqueria was annoying me and I just wanted to get out."

They nodded at that.

"So what did I miss?" Quatre added as the others moved up around him to start gathering food.

"Jin isn't talking to me or Heero anymore," Wufei explained with a grin. "And evidently Trowa's drowning in Blake's eyes or something, and can't get the air to talk."

Trowa snorted at him, looking around Quatre at the other male.

"Other than that, Matty found out how to play 3D solitaire, and...what have you been doing?" he asked Duo.

Duo blinked languidly at him, then moved over to kiss Quatre. "I missed you."

Wufei made a happily gagging noise, bouncing over to sit next to Jinli.

"Get me some jales?" Jin asked.

"Wait, you're talking to me?" Wufei focused on him in confusion.

Jinli gave him a look.

"Heero! He's talking to me again!" Wufei bounced around the table to collect the jalapenos and a few other bits. "I'm so excited!"

Heero grinned back at him.

"You are stupid," Jinli noted, taking the little cup from him and starting to spread the things on his bits of meat. "You know that, right?"

Wufei started laughing, then took the jalapenos from him to start spreading them on his own food.

* * *

Jaden stretched as tall as he could as he moved off the transport shuttle, looking around the little loading bay with relief. Funny to think this was already his home...

"Den!" Qingfu bounced up from the other side happily, passing him a twenty ounce of Pepsi. "Happy to be back?"

"When I can shower and collapse on my bed, maybe," Jaden agreed. "Let me rest a while, then you can show me all the crap that came in."

"Alright," Qingfu settled beside him with a happy and comfortable aire. "Hi, Armend."

"Hey, Rin," Armend returned tiredly, not quite looking at him as he passed.

Qingfu blinked after that, looking around to Jaden, but he was talking to someone else.

"So...wanna see the laptop?" Qingfu asked brightly after a moment.

"I _want_ to finish my conversation," Jaden retorted, grinning at him.

Qingfu grinned innocently back, shifting away to greet more of the men streaming around the captain. He looked back to the man with interest a few moments later, then shifted forward. "I looked up the barnacles," he noted.

Jaden stopped talking to look at him.

"They're like...stupid things," he started to explain.

"Tell me in a minute," Jaden persisted, looking back to the now amused man beside him.

Qingfu sighed, looking to see that no one else was in the machine. He watched a moment as the men started securing the rig up to close the gate, and the site triggered a memory.

"Ooh, Den," Qingfu turned back to him, "did I tell you that we had to fix the water intake?"

Jaden blinked at him.

"I give," the other man noted in amusement. "The good second is a little too much in want of your attention for this conversation."

"What?" Qingfu protested. "I was waiting!"

"Not very well," the man retorted, patting Jaden on the shoulder. "Greet your lover properly before he explodes."

Jaden blinked after him a moment as Qingfu half drew himself up.

The guy walked away without a backwards glance.

Jaden looked around to Qingfu levelly.

Qingfu returned an abashed look, shrugging slightly.

Jaden snorted, wrapping his arm around Qing's shoulder. "Come on, let's go upstairs."

* * *

"Out of fuel or are they repairing?" Duo asked, tapping the pen he was holding against the console.

"We're looking into that," Lucretzia reassured him. "The satellite images were the auto ones, so we have to get the guys to look into it—which is already well underway, I just haven't gotten the reports. They have jettisoned a fair few of their transports, though." She tapped the pen she was holding against her lips. "The images we got showed a bunch of them gone. We're looking into where they may have taken off to."

Duo nodded, drumming his pen briefly on the desk again. "We got searches started a couple hours ago. They're looking to oust any roaches we find. On a personal note, I was excited. The exact plan of how was Matty's idea."

She smiled at that. "On a personal note, Matty's smart like that."

Duo grinned and nodded thoughtfully.

"And he's cute," she persisted. "And sweet, and so _very_ good at everything he does."

Duo blinked at her, then grinned and turned to the door.

Matty was leaning against the door, an abashedly amused smile on his face. "Hi, Lu."

"Alright...hold transcript," she noted, hitting a button. "Hi, Matty," she added, leaning forward. "I get to come down in a couple days."

"Really?" Matty moved closer to the screen. "You'll get to meet Blake!"

She nodded excitedly. "I wanna see the boy to make the great straight-man turn."

Duo rolled his eyes. He didn't understand why everyone else had to make such a big deal out of the relationship. It seemed like he and Fei were the only ones to just accept it, and Trowa was...actually straight. That wasn't to say Blake came off as effeminate or anything, what they had was...strange. Duo could admit that, but he didn't see why it was worth fussing about.

"I'm like, better," Lu was saying to Matty excitedly. "And...Zechs thinks he _does_ want to have a baby now!"

Matty made an excited noise. "Have you decided when you'll get married yet?"

She huffed as she considered that, then rolled her eyes. "A baby, evidently, doesn't need the planning and can just be acted on."

Matty snickered at that.

She shook her head. "So anyway, we're gonna give it a month before they check my goods for scarring," she rested both her hands over her lower abdomen. "And after that...we'll see what happens."

Matty bounced a little at that. "Did I tell you Heero asked if I wanted to marry him?" he demanded, shifting forward a little more.

"No!" her tone was accusatory. "Are you doing it? Am I helping you plan?"

"I'm not ready for marriage _yet_," Matty protested, looking a little uncomfortable. "It just...amazed me. He actually..._wants_ to marry me."

Duo ran a hand down his face and basically bit his tongue. Obviously Matty didn't know Heero all that well yet.

He _did_, however, feel a little miffed that the guy hadn't told _him_. Neither of them had, the assholes...

"Ooh! We found Obsidian," Lu bubbled, fumbling with something in front of her. "Flash your badge."

"You said for them to stop recording," Matty protested, pulling the badge out and holding it in front of the reader.

"No, it means...this isn't relevant to the goings on," she giggled a bit. "It's like prefacing comments with 'on a personal note'...it makes it so it's not part of the official document—there was this guy who was talking to his wife a long time ago...and they went from talking state to talking about her taking her clothes off...and it got all _over_ reports. He almost got fired for inappropriate behavior."

Matty snickered.

"So we're taught to keep personal things personal."

"I get it, that makes sense...I'm excited...should I go into Brazil?"

"You did say you didn't want to," she mused, sitting back thoughtfully.

Duo didn't know what to make of that—as far as he knew, none of them had been talking to her.

"But there's this colonel," he persisted, shifting forward again—he was almost directly in front of the lens. After he'd say something he'd shift back from the thing. "He's been showing Blake all _sorts_ of...pictures! Well...I mean...things to take pictures of," the young man fidgeted. "I want to, kind of..."

"You should just do it," Lu noted, meeting his eyes again. "It's not worth it to deprive yourself when that base is just gone now. You didn't want to go against your will with Timorre, right?"

Matty considered that, pursing his lips, then nodded and beamed at her.

She winked at him, then seemed to notice Duo. "Oh...Duo."

Matty giggled, shifting back to look at the other. "Sorry, I haven't talked to her in a while."

"It's alright," he reassured them both. "We're basically killing time until the updates get to her."

Matty glanced at the screen, his eyes flashing in amusement. "What did time ever do to _you?_"

"It left me no choice but to slay it by not meeting my standards," Duo retorted. "Don't cross me, Mattox. My will is iron."

"And rusted," Lu agreed easily...and they both started giggling.

Duo rolled his eyes.

* * *

Rab stared distantly out the hole in the side of his ship, listening to the sounds of the waves and gulls. A lot of things had started to go wrong for him—had been going wrong from the start.

To begin with, they'd grabbed the _only_ person in the universe that could jump-start the most annoying people who'd ever lived. Then, he'd decided to go after Marquise, whose connection to those annoyances was prominent.

Why had J taken off? Admittedly, he and Rin hadn't had that great a relationship, but he'd thought J counted himself among Rab's closest friends. He'd thought he'd had the man's support and understanding...but...he was wrong.

Then, of course, Ranger had gone off his rocker and decided to chase the boy down.

He'd lost the two men he'd relied on most...lost half his force...then managed to catch Maxwell—the cocky bastard. He'd thought things with the idiot pilot would work to his advantage. As much as the others had tried not to show it, the Williams boy's reaction had said it all when he'd called them. They had a good bluff, but the reality had always been that they were coming for the damned formerly braided man.

He sighed, moving closer to the edge.

It'd have been better if he'd remained in charge—he was pretty sure they could have regrouped at Lateour long before if anyone had bothered getting him in on the talks.

...that didn't matter either.

He was beginning to come to grips with a certain reality.

He was only in charge as long as they _let_ him be.

It left a bitter taste in his mouth, because with either Ranger or J around, no one would have dared knock him out. They'd informed him that it was all they could do to keep him and them from being killed off or arrested—and with what they'd said, Rio Soma wasn't even in ruins.

Barton had razed it.

The notion left him feeling cold, and he stepped closer to the edge and further into the sun—if maybe, he just fell into that churning water...he could be done with this.

"Sir?" one of the soldiers who was always with him muttered, stepping forward. "Please...you're far too close."

"Would you try and save me if I fell?" he asked tiredly.

"Rab," the guy chided, "stop feeling sorry for yourself."

Rab turned to look at him, then closed his eyes with his face toward the sun.

He _wanted_ to jump.

"I'm asking you again," the guy repeated. "Step away from the edge or we will forcibly restrain you."

Would they even _reach_ him in time? Would they be able to save him?

Did he _want_ to be saved?

Iron shot down his spine as he thought of himself afterwards, hauled into the ship and wrapped in blankets. They'd take him to the infirmary for a while, then to his room. They'd keep him there and only take him out on special occasions, when they needed a figurehead.

He was not _just_ a figurehead.

The man made a gesture, Rab could hear the material move.

"If you touch me," he noted coldly, "I will throw you out this hole and let you drown."

The men hesitated.

"You are dismissed," he added to the man who'd been speaking. He met eyes with the startled man next to him. "Take him to his quarters, I'm sure he needs an hour's time to himself."

The guy's mouth dropped open.

Rab snapped his fingers, looking back to the churning ocean below him.

He was no coward. He was no...second-place mutt. He was Rabid-_fucking_-Gerrange, and **_he_** was going to be the one to show the ESA how little it took to change things entirely.

"Go gather the councilmen," Rab instructed some of the remaining men—he hadn't realized how many he had tailing him before. "Bring them to me here, I'll accept no arguments, understood?"

The man smiled grimly at him, nodding his head.

It was about fucking time they figured out how to make a breached-hull space-ready.

He didn't want his last resort taken from him...and he didn't want someone else to step up and try to take _his_ position.

No. The ESA was mobilizing their armies, and he needed to get all his little fuzzy ducklings in a row...or watch them get run-over by a freight train.


	7. Seven

**Seven**

"Well, look at this one," Colonel Tisler muttered, indicating a yellow frog clinging to the side of a tree. "I found him earlier and nearly shit my pants. _He_ can kill elephants."

Blake stepped back, but Matty leaned closer—that was a _tiny_ frog...

Tisler made an amused noise and pulled Matty back by the collar of his shirt. "Don't do that."

Matty grinned at him, raising his phone to take a few pictures. Blake followed suit a few moments later, and Tisler stayed that step back to watch them and recite some text book at them about poison dart frogs—well, he wasn't reciting. He knew the information on his own—but he _sounded_ like a text book...only interesting. The stuff they _ate_ made the poison that could kill elephants.

"These are the ones they used to use to make poison arrows, right?" Matty asked, lowering the phone to look at the creature—it was watching them with interest, but seemed happy enough since they weren't close.

"Yes," Tisler agreed. "I'm not liking it so close to camp—most of the men here know how to make this little beauty seep."

Blake shuddered, glancing toward the people around. "I'm glad we've been doing this for a long time, then," he noted. "That way they don't think twice about what we're looking at."

The man shrugged his agreement, then grinned. "Want me to make it do it?"

Both boys jumped back from him.

He laughed delightedly at that, looking back to the frog and shaking his head. "I think we should move on. There are other insects about that are...just as interesting."

"I like animals more than insects," Matty noted, moving around the frog to see it from a different angle. "Insects are...gross."

"Gay boy," Blake accused.

Matty stuck his tongue out at him as Tisler's eyes went wide. "Straight boy."

"I am _not_ straight," Blake argued instantly.

"You are so, and so is Trowa," Matty retorted. "You both just sleep in the same bed and make lots of noise to make us all _think_ you're fucking. I don't believe Tro could have made you _swoon_."

Blake started giggling wickedly, giving his friend an abashed look. "He _really_ did..._**really**_."

"...Trowa?" Tisler asked, half trying to remind them of his presence. "As in...the Brigadier General _Barton?_"

"You _know_ I'm with him," Blake protested, focusing on him.

"I'm sorry, your little conversation...I don't need to _hear_ that about my _superior_."

Matty started laughing wickedly. "Yuy can make me cum in two minutes flat."

Blake smacked a hand to his face, laughing weakly.

"After foreplay, of course," Matty added thoughtfully.

Tisler stepped back, raising his eyebrows.

"What are you guys doing now?" Heero demanded happily, moving up next them.

Tisler stiffened...which made Matty start giggling.

Heero considered the colonel a moment, then looked skeptically back to Blake. "Matty doesn't lie that much, does he?"

Blake was reduced to giggles himself.

Heero's eyes started to go back to the shocked officer at his side...before they fell on the frog. He stared at it in disbelief a moment before looking to the man. "Is that a poison dart frog?"

"Yes, sir," the guy returned, lowering his head slightly.

"You're all calf-eyed over a poison frog," Heero noted to Matty.

"No worse than you over that gun in the armory," Matty retorted.

Heero raised his eyebrows.

"If you'd rather I don't show them..." Tisler started.

"Nonsense, I appreciate you taking the time to amuse them," Heero grinned wickedly at Matty.

"I _will_ throw you down," Matty informed him dangerously.

Heero laughed, then leaned over to kiss him. "Don't touch the frog," he instructed, then winked at Blake.

He was basically gone as fast as he'd shown up.

Blake tilted his head, watching Heero walk away. "I _do_ like those pants on him."

Matty elbowed him.

Blake laughed delightedly, looking back to the colonel.

"Right..." the man muttered, then blinked. "I didn't salute him."

"He'll get over it," Matty noted happily, turning back to the frog. "I don't think he even noticed it...what else is there?"

"It's not whether or not he'll like it or anything," Tisler retorted, "it's respect."

"And you respect him," Matty agreed, starting to move up the edge of the camp. "Don't go borrowing trouble."

"That's right," the man agreed dryly, looking to the ruins of the former base. "We have enough without that." He sighed slightly, then shrugged and gestured them both after him. "We'll find more by water—let's go find some."

* * *

Watching Matty and Blake bounce around after Tisler proved ten times more distracting than Trowa would have thought. It struck him even more when he realized he wasn't watching them for the sexual appeal, but because he could _tell_ they were having fun.

Trowa frowned, looking around to Duo, who was standing at a table. None of them were properly in uniform, and for some un-known reason, Duo was wearing the regs that _fit_ him. There was something in the way he was standing that Trowa found...interesting.

He pulled his eyes away, grinning slightly to himself.

_Now_ he was checking out his _friends_.

Wufei, who wasn't far away, had seen Trowa's attention and considered Duo himself, skeptical. It was obvious that Duo worked out, but that wasn't the pants—the shirt and his arms displayed that effortlessly. He was confident—but then again they all were. He had a self-possession that most men had to work a lifetime to achieve—but again, they all did.

...Wufei sort of missed the braid. Duo didn't even seem to _smell_ like Duo anymore without it. Whatever shampoo he'd used before had mingled with his scent, and with less than half the hair, that smell was cut almost entirely away.

He needed a better holster.

Quatre, who'd been moving around, stopped beside Wufei, though didn't say anything. He considered his lover with interest a moment, then gave Wufei an interested look. Whatever world Fei was in, though, didn't make him stop his own perusal.

That was...sort of funny.

Heero, meanwhile, had moved back into the tent. Seeing both Quatre and Wufei standing there, he moved to join them. He also focused on his one-time lover, grinning slightly as he wondered if Duo realized what pants he had on.

Duo...felt the attention. He had been going through satellite scans, half bent over the table and using his hands to brace himself. He turned his head to look at Heero, starting to smirk at him...then noticed both Quatre _and_ Wufei.

He froze.

Quatre tilted his head, looking Duo over in the same way Heero was, then met his eyes.

"What?" Duo demanded sharply, turning quickly and not sure what to do with his hands. He grabbed one of the scans as he looked the three...four. Trowa was looking at him too. "_What?_" he insisted, feeling a little embarrassed. "Why are you all looking at me?"

"Nice pants," Heero noted in an amused and knowing tone. His eyes passed over the picture in Duo's hands as he smirked...and turned to wander off again.

Quatre grinned at him.

Duo looked nervously between Wufei and Trowa, trying to figure out the game.

"Grow your hair back out," Wufei instructed, starting to turn away again as well. "You don't smell right." He disappeared out of the tent.

Duo and Trowa blinked after him in confusion, and Trowa went back to whatever he'd been doing on his laptop.

Quatre moved across the tent in amusement, looking coyly up at Duo.

"What were you guys doing?" Duo demanded in a hushed tone, making sure Trowa had refocused as he turned back to the table.

"I walked up and saw Wufei checking you out—and it was an interesting sight. I imagine Heero had much the same reasoning."

Duo blinked at that, then looked down at his pants and closed his eyes.

Right. They were his size.

"Wufei was...different, though," Quatre added thoughtfully. "I couldn't get a firm read on him...but it wasn't lust or anything. He was just...looking?" he considered it a moment and shrugged. "I have no idea—you should stand like that all the time, you're hot."

"We're at work," Duo retorted dryly, sliding a picture over for Quatre's inspection.

"Uh..." Quatre blinked at it. "Your ass looks better?"

Duo snorted at him.

* * *

Obsidian was quiet as Rab stood on the observation deck, waiting as the first of his transports returned with a load of eight MS. The council that had enjoyed a brief stay of power were standing with him, their leader was sulking. Rab didn't care, if they hadn't been as smart as they were, he wouldn't have tolerated them any longer, but they had sound logic and without J and Ranger around, he needed that.

"Rab?"

Rab turned to look at the young man who'd been hacking into the freight sites.

"I found a ship with food on it—it's far enough away not to be watching us...but close enough that we could take it."

Rab nodded, running his hand down his face. "Keep dibs on it—we can send the MS out."

The man nodded, passing him a sheaf of paper. He nodded respectfully to the council-men, then turned and walked away.

Rab considered the ships listed, smirking slightly to himself.

One thing he did have to be grateful for—there was no way J would have been okay with him just _taking_ what they needed.

...and that would be _far_ less bitter if J hadn't started helping the ESA.

Rab's good mood evaporated, and he closed his fist around the paper.

After everything...J was utterly against him. It hadn't been enough that he'd taken half the men and left a blood-bath in his wake...it hadn't been enough that he hadn't even _discussed_ his problems with Rab...no. He'd gone over to the enemy, and his betrayal had taken Ranger away from Rab too.

"Sir?" one of the men asked.

"There's a chance," Rab noted, rounding on them all, "that we'll come across J...Timorre...when the fighting starts." He met all of their eyes. "He's mine."

The men lowered their eyes, not speaking.

Rab considered them a long moment, then moved away from the group toward one of the windows.

The ship needed to hurry up and get back to Obsidian.

He was ready for things to start happening again—when things were happening, it was easier to forget that one of his best friends had fucked him over...when things were happening, he didn't feel so alone.

* * *

"Hey, where are you going?" Qingfu grabbed Jaden's waist before he could move away from the bed, pulling himself up so he could rest his face against the man. "Don't go again."

"I need to go again," Jaden retorted, though he wasn't trying to pull away. "I suppose you _did_ forget, but we have this _ship_ to run...and before you decided to seduce me, I had stuff I was doing."

Qingfu sniggered...and bit Jaden's hip.

Jaden yelped at that, trying to pull away. All he managed to do was get turned around to face the Asian man, though. Qingfu was still laughing as he launched himself to stand on the mattress, then used his weight to bear Jaden back onto the thing again.

"Oops," Qingfu noted insincerely, straddling the man. "Captain, I have a complaint about the supreme ruler."

Jaden started laughing weakly. "All complaints are supposed to be submitted in triplicate."

"Mm," Qingfu returned, leaning down so they were face to face. "Then you'll be here a while."

* * *

"Hey, I thought you were gonna call an hour ago," Duo muttered, glancing up at Jaden on his laptop, then stopping to look at the man again. His throat was covered in little hickeys or bruises...some of those were bruises.

Jaden rubbed at his throat, grinning a bit. "I'm sorry, I got...I lost track of time."

Duo considered that with interest, looking back to the man's throat. "Who?"

"Qing," Jaden admitted, looking down.

Duo _laughed_, looking around to make sure no one was close. "You have fun then? I was wondering how long he'd take to get to you—what'd he do? Lose all patience and throw you against the wall?"

"_What?_" Jaden demanded in disbelief. "What do you mean, how long?"

"Oh, he was all for playing that little game with Hoxha," Duo reassured him happily. "But he was half teasing _you_ for a reason."

Jaden mouthed at him.

"I'm glad for him," Duo added, going back to the satellite maps. "How is he?"

"Sleeping," Jaden noted with a smirk. "I had to knock him out before I could get away."

Duo snickered, marking a spot. "We've got a council discussing your payment—will you argue if it's part food?"

"We have to do some maintenance on the ship," Jaden returned. "I guess our water intake is all field-patched, and that may not last long."

"The water intake?" Duo looked up at him in disbelief. "Did you check the output and the tank?"

"A couple of the guys we have did some navy stints," Jaden shrugged. "They were down there checking things."

"You should bring her in to the port," Duo suggested. "We can do some stuff for you since you are helping us—and then whatever supplies we end up agreeing on...you can just get them directly loaded instead of wasting fuel on the transports."

"I'll have to talk about it with Qing and Armend," Jaden shrugged. "My council, actually...but I'm not doing that for a while, because if I wake Rin up any time soon..."

Duo sniggered and nodded at that.

"So...let me actually apologize for that. I really meant to keep the appointment time."

"I totally got into this," Duo returned, indicating the maps. "Blake and Matty are running around, too. We've lost Barton and Yuy to them."

"Matt's there?" Jaden asked quietly, looking around behind Duo. "How is he?"

"Happy," Duo shrugged. "He and Blake are learning all about the rain-forest creatures. I guess they found a poison dart frog earlier," he hesitated, looking up to Jaden again. "That's a brightly colored frog that seeps poison that's strong enough to kill an elephant."

Jaden's eyes went round.

"Little tiny thing, too," Duo agreed with himself happily, indicating the size with his index finger and thumb. "I bet you'd be having just as much fun as he is if you were around. Winner and Chang went back to the base already, and we're heading back sooner than later. How's Qing? Aside from horny."

Jaden snickered at that. "He's actually really good. Thank you for all that you sent out here."

Duo shrugged companionably. "It was no big thing. I want clothes that haven't been worn the next time I get stranded on your ship and bloody—and I know I want internet out there, too."

Jaden snorted at him.

Duo laughed, marking another bit on the map.

"Anyway, he took me around last night to show me everything—it was the damnedest thing," he added, leaning against the vid-mount. "I got in and he was here to greet me and all, but he just...couldn't wait to talk to me. I was trying to talk to one of my admirals, and he kept piping up with little things...he looked up barnacles, did I want to see the laptop...I forget what all," he shook his head in amusement. "So finally my admiral gave up and said he'd find me later...so we went up to the room to chat."

"And you got laid?" Duo asked happily, marking something else.

Jaden snorted. "It would have made a lot more sense if I could tell you yes, but I can't. We talked a bit, then he started showing me around at all the new stuff...and started touching me. I was looking for Armend when he did that...but I think Armend's been in his room all night. Anyway...we ate and stuff, he couldn't stand losing my attention...we went to sleep..."

Duo stopped, looking up at him curiously.

Jade shrugged a bit. "He woke me up...like...I think we slept a few hours...and suddenly he's biting on me..." he touched his throat and grinned a bit. "I didn't really get to _think_ about anything."

Duo laughed at that, nodding his head. "Good for Qing, then."

"Did I miss something?" Jaden demanded. "I'm lost."

"He was eyeing you when I was _there_," Duo retorted. "He finally got the balls to go through with it. I can't believe it took him that _long_."

"I thought he was straight," Jaden admitted, looking around behind him. "I really did."

"I never asked," Duo noted, tilting his head a bit. "I have no idea, but he _was_ eyeing you...and his game with Hoxha probably distracted you from it. Since we're having this conversation anyway, I totally seduced Quatre."

Jaden snorted.

"You say he's easy and I'll deck you," Duo looked up to the screen again. "I swear Gerrange needs to just _die_...anyway, I walked in on him masturbating once and haven't been able to shake him since."

Jaden _guffawed_.

Duo snickered, looking around. "That was back when you lot had Princey."

"Princey?" Jaden blinked at him.

"Marquise," Duo agreed. "We were up in the L-5 cluster trying to figure out where he was at and trying to get rid of Gerrange's men from our mess." He considered the map, then measured an area with his hand and the pencil. "Hm...that won't work."

"What are you doing?"

"Planning," Duo shrugged, looking up to him again. "Trying to figure out how to do this without you and yours."

Jaden tilted his head at that.

"Not for you," Duo gestured that off. "I have to have a good excuse to keep you tied into our game-plan."

"Hey, Duo, who are you...Jaden!" Matty had entered the tent. "Jaden! Hi!" he moved eagerly beside Duo and glanced back. "How are you?"

"Hey, kid," Jaden greeted him, smiling almost sadly. "I'm good...really good. You?"

"I got all _sorts_ of pictures," Matty explained, showing the guy his phone. "It's awesome...Blake has more," he added with a frown, "but I'm getting my own. How about you? Who'd you fuck?"

"Qing," Jaden returned, grinning at that.

Matty laughed happily at that, bouncing where he stood. He glanced toward the tent entrance quickly, then looked back to the screen. "I'm happy for you."

"Are you...okay?" Jaden asked, frowning at him. He looked down. "Duo was saying...telling me..."

"I'm alright," Matty reassured him, smiling a bit.

"I never meant to upset you," Jaden informed him sincerely. "I know...I should have approached the entire thing differently. I'm sorry, I really am."

"It's okay, though," Matty reassured him. "Wufei and them have been training me in self-defense stuff more...and I'm with them. It's fine."

Jaden messed with something below the screen, nodding his head.

"So tell me about Qingfu," Matty instructed. "I thought he was like...straight."

That made the man look up to him with bright eyes. "I'm just that good?"

Matty _guffawed_, starting to laugh.

Jaden himself started to laugh as well.

"I get the whole stoic response of not knowing," Duo noted skeptically to the youth, "and you get bravado."

Matty half giggled more. "Is he any good?"

"When it's been a year, it's the best," Jaden retorted.

Matty started laughing harder at that.

"Keep it down," Duo muttered to Matty, looking around without moving his head.

Matty stopped laughing, looking around as well.

"What? What's wrong?"

"If Heero comes in here," Matty looked around, "and sees me talking to you it'll ruin his day."

"He regrets being unconscious the last time he was near you," Duo agreed.

Jaden sighed and nodded, running a hand through his hair. "So...what have you been doing?" he muttered to Matty. "School? Work?"

"I quit before you grabbed me," Matty returned with a slight smile. "I started school...but I've missed a bunch now. It was pretty funny, though. The one professor wanted us to see what rank we could get if we went militant and was thinking I was a pacifist when I didn't want to do mine right-off. Heero hadn't taken the alarm off my name yet, either—I think someone got reemed out good for that. He called to get it removed and they made him wait a half hour or more."

Jaden cringed at that.

"When I scanned my card, the entire room went into lockdown and they connected me to a military computer network thing...it was insane. We'd managed to work it out so Quatre was there in uniform, so we only had to wait a minute or so before he came in and cleared it all, but yeah...and every time I go in there are a few guys who wait for me—Quatre was calling me by name. So they all wait to salute me when I'm coming in and stuff."

"Name?" Jaden asked blankly. "Is yours that well known?"

"I'm espoused of Heero, didn't you know that?" Matty tilted his head. "I'm Mattox Williams-Yuy in the legal forum."

Jaden grinned at that.

"So it's pretty funny to go around—like, my read-out after we did it...it said I could be a general and stuff...it was funny."

Jaden grinned at that.

"Anyway," Matty went on. "Classes were kinda getting interesting, but we had to come down here...Jinli...he's...espoused of Chang," Matty sniggered. "He like, looks after us when we're near him...me and Blake."

Jaden started to acknowledge that, then focused behind them.

Heero had entered the tent and stopped.

"It's funny, because it spread," Matty went on, not noticing that. "Like, in the halls and stuff half the time I have a military escort. I got Quatre to come in one day and read them all because soldiers make me nervous...and they all have this blue mark," he touched his temple. He beamed proudly at Jaden as Heero moved up behind them. "That's for me. Quatre knew I'd be upset and wanted there to be a for-sure way I could tell the good guys from the bad guys, so he started reading them and marking them. Everywhere we go, the soldiers want the mark now."

Jaden smiled a bit sadly at him as Duo watched Heero approach sidelong. "That's cool, huh?"

Matty nodded, then spotted Heero. His eager words trailed off as they all focused on the other man.

"Fuck you," Heero informed Jaden...and closed the laptop.

"_Damn_ it, Heero!" Matty moved away from Duo irritably. "_I was **talking** to him!_"

"Why the _fuck_ do you think I closed it?" Heero snapped back.

"Call him back," Matty ordered Duo, then turned to chase Heero from the tent.

Duo sniggered, leaning forward to pop his laptop open again.

Jaden blinked a bit wide-eyed at him.

"It occurred to me at some point that Heero's most likely response to seeing you would be to close the laptop. I turned off the function that makes it sleep."

"Uh...isn't Yuy going to be pissed at that?"

"Yuy will be pissed no matter what, concerning you. We have to figure out a way for him to deal with it."

Jaden smiled a bit at that, looking away.

"Don't admit you deserve it," Duo suggested. "Never admit that to anyone but your lover."

That got an amused quirk.

"Anyway, I need to swat that boy's ass," he added, looking around to where Matty was ranting at Heero. "He gave _me_ an order."

"I think he gave me a few when I had him," Jaden noted with a little grin.

Duo snickered. "That's fine, it's just you."

Jaden snorted at that.

"I want to hang up before he gets back," Duo noted with another grin, "but then he'll give me this _sad_ look," he pouted at Jaden in example. "And he'll be all mopey and quiet...like he thinks I'm upset at him."

"He even has _you_ wrapped around his finger?" Jaden asked blankly.

"_He_ is just that good—he turned Trowa...bi."

"What?" Jaden gave him a disbelieving look.

Duo sniggered and shrugged. "Trowa was straight and is attracted to him. The two things don't work well together, and then Trowa was drunk and seduced his little friend. The two of them are just as much lovers as me and Quatre. Hell, we're all pretty sure that if Trowa's laptop got torn from the network, half the military would _die_, and he let his little lover load pictures on it so he didn't have to lose them."

Jaden smiled at that.

"Like, the kid was realizing that he either had to stop taking pictures or delete some...it broke his little heart...and Trowa stepped in and loaded all the pictures onto his laptop—went to give everyone a presentation one day and the main desktop had the background of one of those _frogs_."

Jaden started laughing at that, shaking his head.

"Yeah, we were all impressed," Duo agreed dryly.

"He makes me so _mad_," Matty blurted, moving back to them and rubbing hard at his eyes. "He's just...so..._obstinate_."

Duo watched as Matty sat on the stool he had in front of the screen, then looked beyond the younger male to Heero. Heero was standing at the entrance to the tent with a confused and upset expression—one that meant he wasn't sure what he was feeling or what to do about it. "I'll be back," Duo noted, moving around toward his friend. He needed to help Heero sort this out sooner than later...if they could all find a happy medium...well, that would be happy.

* * *

"Do you want to _eat?_" Rab demanded of the men of the council. "Do you want to _eat_ or do you want to _starve?_ We can't very well _buy_ supplies, you _have_ to realize that."

"But we don't like the idea of harming civilians," the main guy protested bitterly.

"Then don't harm them," Rab suggested, turning and pushing into the hanger. "Scare them into _thinking_ you'll harm them."

"Rab, this isn't..."

Rab gestured sharply, cutting the guy off. "Would you like some time alone to think about this?" he asked sweetly.

"Shit," the guy muttered glumly. "I thought J and Rab were the bastards."

"_What?_" Rab snapped, turning on the man instantly.

The guy looked back at him in alarm, stepping back.

Rab followed, moving faster than the other to get in his face. "_Never_ talk about _**them**_ to _**me!**_" he struck the man hard, and he stumbled back. Rab wiped the blood off his hand onto his jeans, then turned to address the men who'd gathered in the hanger.

The man he'd hit pulled his bloody hands from his face in disbelief before looking up to his comrades.

"Live a fool's life, die a fool's death," one of the others noted, looking up toward Rab and smiling thinly. "Let's go."

The group of them, all but the man struck, followed Rab into the main floor where the various soldiers were messing with suits.

"My men...my...people..." Rab beamed around at them all. "Please, be careful today. I don't expect anything will hinder _us_..."

* * *

"In the end we were able to recapture a good twenty of the men, though even then some few were able to get away," the leader of the search team muttered, flicking through a few more shots that had been taken earlier that day. "We're sure that tomorrow our team, or the next sector over will be able to find the few remnants in this area," he tapped a map. "The expanding line notion seems to be working out," he nodded his head respectfully to Heero. "Our forces are currently readying for the coming confrontation, assuming, of course, that we'll be included," he rubbed briefly at the blue mark on his temple.

"Thank you," Duo muttered, considering the map they'd been given as he thought.

"I'm going to my rest," the man noted, bowing his head a bit. "I'd like to be ready for any more action."

Quatre flashed him a grin.

The wall-screen screamed into life with an alarm as a female soldier appeared. "Generals," she saluted, "Obsidian has attacked a civilian freight ship."

They all jumped to their feet, staring at her.

"The information has been sent to your data points," she added. "It's unclear at this time exactly _how_ this attack is being carried out, but it is in progress as we speak."

"Let's move!" Duo shouted, turning as he did so—they were in an office over the MS garage, and his shout carried easily to the men moving around below.

"Three teams, _immediate!_" Trowa shouted as he launched himself over the railing.

They were four stories up.

Heero and Quatre flinched like they'd attempt to catch him as he sailed through the air, and slammed onto the back of Heavyarms.

"He means immediate," Wufei noted happily, then darted out himself. He landed on Heavyarms' shoulder as well, then darted out along the arm. Whether or not Trowa had been aware of that plan was utterly unknown, but he had the mecha's arm extended enough that Wufei was able to sail from that hand...onto Demigod.

"We're slow," Heero noted, though they were already going down the stairs. "I'm after the boys and Jin..._Duo!_"

"I'm not running like a bat out of hell," Duo retorted as both Heavyarms and Demigod started toward the slowly opening hanger.

Quatre sniggered and kissed his lover for luck, then turned to dart for his own unit—they had probably thirty seconds before their phones would pick up the information...he wanted to be a little closer to go when it got there.


	8. Eight

**Eight**

Wufei swore as he dodged the blast from the damned Aries. The weaponry for his suit was to par with these beasts...but he was used to being _better_ than his enemy in more than skill. He cursed a few more times as he shot at the machine...then remembered the whip. He grabbed it out, laughing wickedly as the power surged along it with a crackling sound.

"Well, then," Heero said. "If you're gonna waffle..."

"Winner?" Wufei demanded, ignoring that. Heero's sense of humor was appreciated, but he had other things to focus on...like an Aries that was trying to put him out before his little toy was fully lit.

"I need the range," Quatre retorted.

Wufei swung the whip around in a wide arc. The power shot up the thing as it swung, and the tip hooked around the ankle of the enemy suit. The machine almost seemed to freeze in midair...and promptly lost power.

Quatre made a thinking noise.

The Aries plummeted toward the ocean, and at the point where Heero was ready to send out the men to retrieve the pilot, the MS opened up and the seat ejected.

"Right," Quatre added, refocusing. "Let's go with...uh..."

"Uh?" Trowa demanded irritably. "You just said _uh?_"

"Wufei, take it up the middle," Quatre retorted. "Duo, come in low from above...Trowa?"

"Yeah?" Trowa asked dryly.

"Don't run out of bullets."

Duo started snickering as he and Wufei went in at the cluster of suits.

"Barton! The scraps!"

Trowa went for the MS that tried to peel away from the attack.

Heero grasped the railing of the ship he was on with both hands, watching as the dance played out. Quatre was in the main observation deck behind him, and there wasn't much for them to do until suits started dropping.

"Why did I come, again?" Matty muttered, moving under Heero's arm as he watched the distant suits.

"I didn't suggest it," Heero noted pointedly, glancing further up the railing at Blake. Blake was clinging to the railing himself, so intently focused on Heavyarms that he didn't seem to realize that he was ducking and dodging with it.

"Damn," Jin muttered, moving out onto the deck with them. "Things are about to get hectic up here, aren't they?"

Heero turned to look at him, then down to his lover. He smiled slightly, then shoved him to Jin.

"What?" Matty asked blankly as the Asian man pulled him back to the building.

"We have to have you safe, and have our room to run," Heero explained, moving over to grab Blake's upper-arm.

Blake turned instantly into his embrace, clinging to him as he watched the fighting.

"Come on," Heero suggested. "This is a bunch of Aries. He could take this whole unit out by himself."

Blake looked up at him, a scared expression on his face.

"Come on," Heero encouraged, tugging him. He got him into the comm. room with Quatre, nodding his head slightly to Jin. He grabbed the man's forearm, half-hugging him...then turned to kiss his lover one last time.

He knew it wasn't likely that anything would happen to him in this fight...but something could.

He moved back onto the deck, starting down the stairs as he watched the fight continue in the water, gesturing for his team to get their shit ready.

* * *

"My fuel's blown!" Trowa snapped irritably, turning his machine to head back for the ship. "I need to land!"

"Shift the ballast!" the captain shouted, turning and gesturing. "Ready for the weight!" he disappeared from the room.

"Hold on!" Quatre shouted as Blake and Matty both darted from the room. "_Damn it! **Wong!**_"

Jinli came in from the hall, looking to Quatre in alarm.

Quatre pointed toward the running young men. "Grab _ahold_ of something!"

Jin darted out the doors, realizing that people were shouting all around. Blake and Matty had made it most of the way down the stairs to the level of the landing strip. He decided that Trowa was close enough to landing that he could take a leap of faith, and jumped to the railing. There was a horrible moment of uncontrolled sliding before the younger men both came out on the flat level...Heavyarms was coming over the ship, and more people were _shouting_.

Everyone had ahold of something.

Jinli cursed as he launched himself after the younger men.

Heavyarms' engines cut.

Jin caught Matty around the waist, swinging him toward the railing...then reached out and yanked Blake to him as well...as the entire ship _rocked_.

The weight of the gundam wasn't beyond the ship to take, but the ship wasn't an actual transport. It wasn't made for _MS_.

"Hold on!" Jin shouted at the young men as they started to slide. Blake's feet were swept from under him on the wet surface, and for a horrible moment Jinli thought they were both going into the wet.

The sound of the gundam dropping onto the deck was deafening, and the ship swayed dangerously. A huge spray of water washed up the far side...and as their edge shifted even higher into the air, Jin realized they were _getting_ wet.

The water was icy cold as it sprayed around them, and Blake gave up on trying to hold onto the wet metal—he decided Jin could do it for him. Unfortunately, Matty had that same thought process, so he had about a third of a second to get a grip on the wet railing before all three of them took a swim.

"Alright there, Wong?" someone shouted.

"I'm alright," Jin reassured whoever it was as the ship stopped attempting to capsize.

...so much for the first ocean trip, right? Sounds like good fun...get on a Navy vessel and go watch the fighting from a safe distance...check your sea stomach and smell the ocean air...

Right.

Matty and Blake were still gasping when they realized they were safe, looking around as they all but dripped and shivered.

"Alright?" Jin asked, looking between them.

They both nodded, wiping at their faces.

"_Blake!_" Trowa shouted, launching out of the cockpit and sliding down his machine. "_Blake!_"

Blake turned a little unsteadily and darted for his lover. He didn't run.

"What are you doing out here?" Trowa half complained at his boyfriend. "You shouldn't be out here..."

"Way to center it, Barton!" someone shouted, moving away from the railing as well.

Trowa sniggered, looking around to the man...and along the edges at the wet people. "Sorry," he muttered loudly. "I was running on fumes and there was a good breeze."

That got men laughing and groaning.

Matty moved up to Trowa, shaking hard as he curled into the guy's chest.

"What's this?" Trowa asked in a sort of bracing tone. "You're not _that_ cold, are you?"

"I'm not shivering from the cold," Matty returned, clinging to him—Blake was too, while they were at it.

"Thank you, Jin," Trowa noted, looking up. His voice wasn't meant to carry beyond them. "I saw them coming and then saw you going for them—I suppose I should have been watching more what I was doing."

"The water is cold," Jin noted intelligently, plucking at his shirt.

Trowa grinned at him.

"I'm _serious_," Jinli protested, moving up to pull the man into a quick hug since the other two had pulled back. "I was scared for a few that all three of us were going in."

"And wouldn't you be something then?" Trowa smirked at him, then looked back out to the battle. "You did good," he informed the Asian, then turned to kiss Blake—to cat calls from the men behind.

Blake looked a little embarrassed a he met Trowa's eyes again.

"I'm likin' the coy," Trowa noted, kissing his temple, then leaned over to kiss Matty's temple. "We're okay," he noted to them, starting to walk. "What are you doing down here, anyway?"

"I wanted to make sure you were okay," Blake said quickly, clinging to his arm as they started back for the stairs. "I didn't mean to..."

"Were you _trying_ to capsize my ship, Barton? What the hell, man!"

Trowa turned to look at the exasperated captain. "I'm sorry, Captain," he said. "I thought I had it lined up."

The man sighed, then looked between the younger men. "That was the stupidest thing I've ever seen done," he informed them—they were both instantly embarrassed. "And you there, colony-boy," the man looked up to Jinli. "Good save," he smiled a bit. "You can't be on the sea the first time without getting wet, huh? You'll probably take a swim before we go inland, but that's what Earth is for, huh?"

Jin blinked at him several times...which was evidently funny. The man was laughing as he turned away.

"You touched it," Trowa noted, indicating the shirt with a jerk of his head. "You hear the waves, you've touched the water...you'll never want to go into space again. Hell, it'll be too quiet in Peru tonight, huh?"

Jin smiled grimly back at that, following them toward the stairs again.

"All I have to say," Trowa noted happily as he burst into the control room, "is that I didn't run out of bullets."

Quatre flashed him a grin. "First time for everything, huh? What now?"

"I have ten minutes for them to refuel," Trowa added. "Where's food?"

Quatre pointed, then looked between Blake and Matty.

"We feel stupid enough already," Matty muttered, looking away.

Quatre snorted at him, and Jin led the pilot from the room.

* * *

"That was all of them," Heero muttered as their little motorized thing came up alongside the larger ship. He caught the ladder before the craft had stopped and pulled himself up by his arms until his feet could gain purchase. "We got a handful of the soldiers who were flying, but all eight of those damned suits were down. There was a transport that came up during the fighting and took the damned cargo, though. A good handful of those pilots got to the transport. The way I figure it, really, is that Gerrange's forces are down to twenty-five."

"Not a bad start from five thousand," Wufei mused, hauling the guy over the rail.

"What's this I hear?" he added, focusing on Matty and Blake. "The two of you decided to take a dip?"

"Haha," Matty retorted, moving to hug and kiss him.

"Good man," he muttered, half hugging and half patting Jinli on the back as they started for the main stairs again. He stopped, though, looking to the pro and tilting his head.

"Hm?" Wufei asked, looking up to Demigod and Heavyarms.

"Where's Deathscythe?"

"Well, after Trowa tried to capsize the ship the first time he landed, the captain decided he didn't want to chance all three on here. He wasn't too up to me landing Demigod, but I didn't do more than make it bump," he looked pointedly to Trowa.

Trowa sniggered, squeezing Blake a bit. "I landed it right the second time, give me a break."

"Well?" Quatre muttered, appearing at the head of the stairs.

"Well what?" Heero asked dryly.

"Where's Duo?" Quatre retorted, looking around.

"He's not here?" Heero looked blankly to Wufei.

"We thought he'd be coming in with you...but he's on her," he pointed toward a second ship.

"He's probably overseeing the maintenance," Heero retorted, pulling Quatre into a brief hug.

Quatre sighed, grumbling.

"Come on," Wufei muttered, grabbing Jin's upper arm and tugging him away from the group.

"What's up?" Jin muttered, watching as the rest of the group moved into the warmly lit comm. room. The sun had set, and the ship's main lights were down.

"I figured you'd been inside since sunset," Wufei explained with a slight grin.

"Listen, Fei," Jin muttered happily as they moved toward the very rear. "I know we've been testing the waters here...but I want a divorce."

"I won't sign it," Wufei retorted, then sniggered.

Jin snickered himself, leaning against the railing as the yelling of the men on the ship started to fade.

"When we take down Gerrange...I will, you know that, right?"

Jinli sniggered. "I'm more amused by it now than anything...it's funny when people hear my name."

Wufei nodded, then gestured toward the ocean. "Look."

Jinli turned to the ocean and blinked a few times.

"Listen," Wufei added.

Jinli focused on the sound of the shifting waves, focusing on the dark sea. He took a slow breath, then looked up to the dark skies...cloudless for once.

"This," Wufei said quietly, "was the one thing that kept me sane when I thought everyone was gone...I wished you were here then."

Jinli leaned against the railing.

"When this is done...and we can find everyone again...I want to get a yacht. I know a place where we can rent them, huh? We can put to sea and anchor..." he laughed a little, "off the port-bow of nowhere...and get drunk."

"Everyone?" Jin asked quietly.

"Anyone who'll come," Fei agreed quietly. "Have you...called them?"

"Most," Jin agreed. "They bitched at first...but...so far they're all game. They're networking together again."

Wufei focused down on the ocean below them.

"How did you ever leave this?" Jin asked quietly, staring out at the water...then looked properly up to the sky.

Wufei looked up to the stars as well, smiling vaguely. "I could only be _so_ alone," he noted. "When Duo was done at sea, I either had to go in with him or...be left alone."

"Your life had to be hell."

"Yeah...it was," Wufei dropped down to dangle his legs over the edge. "But we're here now, huh? You're here...and it's not like I'm getting' laid tonight."

Jin snickered, dropping down next to him. They were both leaning against the railing posts. "How are we gonna work that one out?" he muttered. "I'm not gettin' anymore laid than you are. Everyone knows you and everyone knows me. What should we do?"

"We'll have to reach outside the military," Wufei returned in amusement. "Which means another month probably."

"We should...go into port," Jin suggested in amusement, gesturing in the vague direction of land with his head. "Get them to leave us a truck behind and get a couple rooms at a hotel."

Wufei snickered. "If we present it right, people will just think it's me and you, huh?"

"I had a similar thought myself."

Wufei snickered more, then sighed. "So while we wait to go back inland...I'm hanging out here. You?"

"How private a party is this?"

Wufei and Jin jumped, turning to look back at Duo. He had his hands in his pockets as he stared out at the water himself.

"Hey...you okay? Why isn't Quatre attached to you?"

Duo grinned and looked down to Jin a moment, then moved to sit on Fei's other side. "I greeted him, and he decided it's colder out here than he's ready to deal with. I was on a ship, did you know that?" he asked Jin as he straddled a post. He was leaning forward against the thing, studying the waves. "I missed this."

"I knew I'd find you out here," Trowa muttered, moving up behind them with Blake and Matty in tow. "You're the only psychos who'll stay out here. Jin, when you get cold come in, these two numbskulls have weathered enough storms that it blew their brains out."

Duo grinned up at him.

"We're taking a helicopter back to base," Trowa added. "You guys gonna hang out?"

"I am," Duo noted quietly. "Is Quatre with you?"

"Yeah, he looked out here and decided he was cold," Trowa made an amused noise. "Jin?"

"Me'n Fei are gonna get a room at port."

"You don't have to say it like that to _him_," Wufei noted dryly. "We both want to get laid," he added to the group.

"We can call ahead and make a reservation," Trowa informed him happily. "Honeymoon suite, huh?"

Wufei and Jin both glared at him.

Trowa laughed happily, then turned to head back for the comm. room.

"See you guys tomorrow," Blake muttered, smiling between the three of them. "Be safe tonight, huh?"

Duo smirked at him.

Matty moved over and pulled Wufei's hair out, fussing with it a moment thoughtlessly—Wufei was deciding not to comment—then the young man re-looped the band around the hair and choked Wufei from above and behind. "Don't get an STD."

Wufei guffawed, turning to snatch at him as the kid giggled and waved at Jin...and disappeared.

* * *

Rab paced wordlessly along the walkway, focused internally. Eight of his suits had been fucked. They'd gotten the supplies, but eight of the suits...

What was he going to do now?

"Sir?" one of the soldiers muttered, moving up the area Rab was in hesitantly. "Sir? We think we have an idea...on how to make Obsidian space-worthy again."

Rab stopped, turning to look at him.

The soldier flicked a blow-torch on and smirked.

* * *

Jaden yawned as he dropped next to Qingfu on the bed, considering his friend skeptically.

"What is that look?" Qingfu demanded.

"I'm debating if you just lost your mind this morning," Jaden explained. "And then if we should talk about it."

"I think you're overcomplicating it," Qing retorted, shifting around where he lay. "And am therefore done talking about it. Simple question, yes or no?"

"Yes or no?" Jaden demanded. "Yes or no what?"

Qingfu gave him an amused look.

"Can I think about it?" Jaden asked half petulantly, visualizing an _actual_ relationship with the capricious Asian.

"No," Qingfu retorted. "It's like...me or that secretary chick of yours."

"But she's whiney," Jaden protested. "Can't I pick someone else?"

"No."

Jaden snickered at that, considering the guy. "And what, exactly, brought this on?"

"Brought it on?" Qingfu asked dryly. "We've been running around together since the beginning of April...I suppose you haven't realized it, but its September. Before midnight it was September eighteenth. That's like...forever. You're kidding, right?"

Jaden snorted at that.

"So...yes or no?"

Jaden pressed his face into the pillow a brief moment, then shifted around to pin the other male to the bed. "Yes...I guess."

"You _guess?_" Qingfu demanded, exasperated. "You _**guess?**_"

Jaden snickered, darting in to bite at the exposed skin of the guy's throat. "Okay, bad phrasing," he muttered when Qing hesitated. "I'll make it up to you."

Qingfu snorted at him...but allowed the distraction to stand.

* * *

"Morning, Tim," Trowa croaked into his phone as he rolled out from under Blake. Blake grumbled at being moved.

"Are you okay?" Tim asked. "I've been worried. There was a big battle last night...and aren't you the pilot of Heavyarms? I _saw_ the footage."

"Sorry, I didn't even think to call," Trowa realized, rubbing at his mouth. "Shit...I'm sorry about that. I'm fine...we're all fine. Our machines weren't even damaged. The most exciting thing going on with it is that Wufei and Jinli decided to go to port when we were done."

"Go to port?" Tim asked blankly. "What do you mean?"

"They both wanted laid, but they're espoused. No chicks on the base will look at them twice for it...not to mention how inappropriate it would be if Fei pulled it off. They decided to stay in town and find non-military girls."

"Oh...that makes sense..." Tim hesitated. "When are you coming home?"

"Oh, you miss me?" Trowa sniggered. "We totally have to bring down Gerrange. We decimated his little suit-rebellion...at least that he's put out so far. All we have to do is pin Obsidian down and pluck him out. I'd say we had a week, but at the same time, I thought that about three months ago."

Tim snorted at him.

"Maybe I can get you down here some weekend," Trowa mused. "That way you can see how calm it really is here."

"Or it'll be like that day you took me out to that cave and paced the area with a gun I'm _sure_ could have destroyed a ship."

Trowa sniggered at that. "Not even...I may go out in Heavyarms again, sure, but you'll be fine with Jin and the boys."

"You were only planning to be there like, three days," Tim accused. "What happened to that?"

"You've been _watching_ the news," Trowa retorted. "Why are you asking me that nonsense?"

Tim snorted.

"So," Trowa added, "figure out what weekend you want to come down here, and I'll arrange it."

Tim made a thinking noise. "I don't know if I want to come down...that seems...hard."

"Blake is here," Trowa noted dryly. "Blake and Matty both."

"I heard that Duo got grabbed...what happened with that?"

"He sort of escaped on his own," Trowa shrugged. "And then he ended up out on Timorre's ship. He stayed out there a lifetime or two and came back in."

Tim considered that.

"It's actually pretty safe. I mean...we had Matty and Blake with us out there, right? Tonight, they were on the ship...you could probably see it in the footage you watched. We had them _out_ there _**with**_ us."

"I'll think about it," Tim muttered quietly. "I'll let you know if I want to do that or not."

"I'm quitting," Trowa noted through a yawn. "This is far more than long enough and I can't even see when I'll come back in. How's work? How is everyone?"

"We're all right. I slid into your job, so your absence hasn't killed our branch yet. I guess if you did quit, things might start really going again."

"I'll call after a bit...what time is it?"

"Three," Tim admitted quietly. "I waited until I was sure you weren't calling...I need to go to bed soon."

"Hm...so I'll call into work here in an hour or three—you okay?"

"Yeah," he noted in a lighter sort of tone. "Yeah...I actually found a chick. She's...pretty neat."

"Pretty neat?" Trowa demanded.

"Tro, it's six in the morning," Blake muttered, rolling to cover his head. "What are you doing?"

"Talking to Tim," Trowa retorted. "I'm not leaving; you don't have to get up when I go anyway."

Blake made a noise at him.

"Who was that?" Tim asked blankly.

"My boyfriend," Trowa noted in amusement, realizing that Tim hadn't been around for the development.

Tim...didn't say anything.

Trowa snorted slightly, moving into the bathroom. "Things just sort of worked out here. I've been...doing pretty good, really. If you're not busy...I'm game to chatter."

"I suppose," Tim agreed in vague amusement. "That's that kid, huh? The friend of Matty you were playing around with? What happened to you being straight?"

"I haven't figured that part out yet," Trowa returned happily. "I'm working on it."

* * *

Lucretzia moved off the shuttle with Zechs a few steps behind her, looking around the port with interest.

"You okay?" Zechs asked for the millionth time.

"I'm fine," Lu retorted, smiling back at him. "Are _you?_"

"I'm not the one who's been recuperating," he retorted.

"Oh, hush," she looked back around again. "I like this port. Do you suppose it's warm outside?"

"Warmer than up north," he agreed, moving close beside her.

"I bet it's like Africa," she noted happily, running a hand through her hair as she followed the signs pointing her toward the baggage claim. "I miss Africa."

"You would, weirdo," Zechs agreed pleasantly.

Lu snickered at that, looking around more. "It'll be fun, Matty said that Blake found some guy that shows them all the weird bugs and stuff. I'm kinda excited to meet Blake—I think I did a little bit at his work, but..."

"That's the guy Tro's bangin', right?"

"It's his _boyfriend_," Lu protested, giving hers a look.

"I'm not going to start claiming that until I hear Trowa say it," Zechs retorted, looking around again himself.

"Whatever," she muttered almost petulantly. "Anyway, they go into Brazil to the base camp and look around for whatever animals, and the guy's been telling them facts about it and stuff. He's probably a bio major or something."

"Sure," Zechs agreed, not caring.

Lu ignored that. "So I'll be running around with them, and you can play soldier with the rest."

"Play?" he asked dryly.

The woman sniggered happily at that, bouncing around a corner and stopping to figure out which claim was theirs.

"Look," Zechs pointed at the reader-board to their right. "Come on."

Lu bounced after him.

"Oh good lord," Duo muttered as they neared the group waiting for them. "What are _you_ doing here?"

"Protecting my girl from _you_," Zechs retorted.

"Lu!" Matty bounced around the male to hug her excitedly. "This is Blake! Blake! This is Lu!"

"So you're Tro's..." Lu trailed off as she realized the guy was saluting her. She smiled back at him, saluting him back.

"It's an honor to meet you, Ma'am," Blake muttered.

Lu giggled at that and pulled him into a hug.

"His dad is a colonel back in L.A.," Matty noted, blinking a few times. "I guess he half grew up on base or something—I forgot about that."

"It's nice to meet you," Lu muttered to the young man, then turned to face her fiance. She could see that Blake was nervous, and wondered if it was more because of her or _him_. "This is my fiance, Zechs Marquise or Milliardo Peacecraft—however you want to call him."

Blake saluted Zechs as well.

"Call me Zechs, kid," Zechs suggested, wrapping an arm around the younger male's shoulder as he looked around to Trowa.

"What?" Trowa asked curiously, extending his arms.

Blake beamed up at Zechs a moment, then darted into Trowa's arms. Trowa leaned down to whisper in his ear, and Blake half giggled in response.

Zechs blinked at him.

"What?" Trowa asked, pulling away as Blake turned to smile at the new pair again.

"I'm still trying to figure out why you're here," Duo added happily to Zechs.

"Oh, stop," Matty muttered, swatting at him.

Duo laughed at that, then moved over to hug Lu and kiss the side of her neck. "I'm glad you're okay."

She smiled back at him as he shook hand with Zechs and Quatre moved to hug her. "Hey, Tro?"

"Yeah?" Trowa returned as he also shook Zechs' hand.

"Zechs refuses to acknowledge Blake as your boyfriend."

"What?" Trowa asked blankly, grabbing Blake's hand. "Why not? He is," he added, looking to Zechs. "Blake is my boyfriend."

Blake smiled shyly up at Zechs, leaning against Trowa's side.

"Told you," Lu noted happily to her boyfriend. "So...how hot is it outside?"


	9. Nine

**Nine**

"Trowa!"

"Hey, Li," Trowa greeted Matty's little sister as he wandered through the base to catch up with the others. "It occurred to me that there was fighting broadcasted on the news and I actually have more friends than are here."

Lifon giggled. "I miss you! It's so _quiet_ around here, it's driving me _nuts. Are_ you okay? Me and my dad were watching the fighting on the news...it looked kinda scary. You're..."

"Not hurt," he cut her off quickly. "None of us are hurt. The worse thing that happened was that I landed bad on the ship and got your brother all wet."

She sniggered at that.

"School started, right?" he added. "How are you there?"

"It's...normal," she returned quietly. "Nothing interesting going on. I keep getting weird looks because I've actually been following what you guys are doing down there. I have this current-events class where the teacher like...wanders all over...but I've been using the news I can find on you guys. He's confused why I think it's so interesting."

Trowa grinned at that. "I can see it—how's your laptop?"

"Beautiful and shiny," she returned easily. "All my friends are jealous of the skin...and then realize it's not a _skin_...and then they all died. When I let them look at the stats..." she laughed wickedly. "It's better than most of the teachers'."

"I would imagine, it cost enough," he snickered. "And the phone?"

"I'm on it aren't I?" she retorted.

"You're on _a_ phone, love," he countered. "You could have accidentally dropped the one I got you in the toilet, then what?"

She made a noise. "That would _suck_."

"I can't talk too long today," he added as he moved around another corner. Illicit was starting docking procedures, and he was expected to be there around when Jaden got off the ship—he was heading that way as he talked.

"Is Matty okay?" she asked quietly. "Blake?"

"They're fine," Trowa reassured her, realizing he had to tell _her_ that Blake was his boyfriend. He didn't care about anyone else knowing, but the idea of telling _her_ didn't appeal somehow.

"Is Heero, then?" she added. "The rest of you? Tim got ahold of me to say you were fine earlier. It was kinda weird and I could tell he was sort of nervous for it...but he thought I'd like to know. Man, I know you haven't even been gone a month, but it seems like...a lot longer."

"I appreciate him doing that," he noted. "And this part is taking an age. I'm all suited up, though—I sneeze and twenty men tell me 'yes, sir!'"

She snorted at that.

"I tried telling one of them to sneeze, but it didn't work."

She guffawed.

He laughed a little. "Yeah...I don't know why it didn't work."

"You're so special," she informed him dryly. "You know that, don't you?"

"You wouldn't be my friend if I weren't," he retorted. "Mm...right now there's a spaceship docking. I have to go be all official there. I'm almost to it now, so I'll have to let you go—but I can call you back. I want to try to keep better in touch with you and Tim. On school days...is there a good time to call you?"

It was something of a relief to work out those details with her, and he realized he _did_ miss her. He had fun running her around town and hearing all about her dramatic days. It was almost like a soap-opera to hear how her and her friends related to each other, too. He'd liked having Blake, Matty, and Li running around the apartment.

"I miss you," Li noted quietly. "I do."

"Yeah, me too," he agreed tiredly. "Hopefully we can get this stuff finished, huh? Wish me luck."

She made a slightly amused noise. "Good luck."

Trowa sighed as he closed the phone, looking around as he entered the busier area where people were watching Illicit.

"Hey, what were you doing?" Blake asked, moving to kiss him briefly.

"I had to finish some stuff up on the laptop before I came down," Trowa shrugged, tucking the phone away. "You need to start calling home more."

"Huh?" he asked, blinking at that.

"When was the last time you called your dad?" Trowa shrugged. "I realized I was being bad about it when Tim called—so I called Li."

"Oh? How is she?" they started through the people.

"Fine...normal enough, I guess. I didn't really have that long to talk to her. I figure tonight I'll have her go to the apartment and use the vid."

Blake nodded.

"They were starting to worry about you," Matty muttered as they moved from one hall to another. "What were you doing?"

"I called your sister," Tro returned. "Have you?"

He made a face, thinking about that. "I haven't talked to her or my dad since I got here. That's bad—I've talked to _Lu_ more than them."

"What?" Lu asked, turning to look at them. She smiled, saluting Trowa. "Sir."

"Ma'am," he retorted, saluting her back.

She grinned, looking him over. "You look dashing in full uniform."

"And you look good naked, what's your point?" he gave her a look—she smacked him.

He laughed. "Sorry...where is everyone?"

"We were all slowing to wait for everyone else," Matty grinned at him. "We were all in a group, then Blake decided to slow up and wait for you—and I decided to wait with him. Lu decided to stay with me...and we'll probably meet up with everyone else as we go through this mess." He gestured around them at the soldiers who were watching the ship with interest through the windows.

"Where were you?" Heero asked from where he and Zechs had been standing not far off.

Trowa sniggered—their conversations hadn't seemed to get anywhere so far, he doubted they would for a while.

* * *

"...and they asked that you all please wear visitor tags," Qingfu summed up as they all stood in a conference room. "We've discussed it with the authorities, and it's been decided that you'll be free to wander the base until lights-out. After lights-out, if you're outside the base, you'll have to be brought from the gate to the ship by transport, so we request that you come back _before_ nine. You don't have to come back," he added. "We plan to be docked here two days, and hopefully by then everything will be ready, so check in Monday night and we'll let you know what happens then. There are soldiers," he added quickly as he indicated the exit, "on the far side of that door. Den and...Timorre and I are going to meet with everyone there, and Hoxha plans to stay on ship, so he's in charge while we're gone."

There was a thud as the ship touched down into its rest, and everyone swayed, blinking as the engines revved higher...and fans started.

"So...I need to go," Qingfu added quickly. "Please take care and don't get yourselves in trouble because we're not fully sure where we stand legally at this point."

People made noises.

Qingfu winked, then turned and moved from the room. An instant mutter started up behind him, and after a moment people started following him.

Jaden moved down the other hall, rubbing his hands together. He smiled tightly at Qingfu, then a bit more at everyone else.

"Ready, captain?" someone asked from the vid to the comm. room.

"Ready," Jaden agreed.

There was a release of air, and the door started lowering.

"You ready for this?" Qingfu muttered, considering Jaden's face.

"I suppose," Jaden agreed, starting down the ramp.

"Supreme Ruler," Duo greeted with a casual salute as he grinned at them.

Jaden gave him a look. "Lieutenant General Maxwell," he returned the half-assed salute.

"Rin," Duo added.

Qingfu smiled back at him, then noticed Matt standing a ways off with other soldiers and felt a flash of guilt.

"Welcome to Borde del Rio," Yuy noted in a quiet voice.

"I'm glad to see you're well, Yuy," Jaden returned, offering the man his hand. The guy hesitated to take it, but did shake finally. "Barton," he offered his hand.

Matty bounced.

Jaden flashed him a quick grin, then focused back on Chang as Yuy's expression went dark.

"I hear you liked my gifts?" Duo asked easily, moving closer to Qingfu.

"You have no idea how helpful it really was," Qingfu agreed. "Even the weird sweats."

Duo grinned at that. "I wanted to get you a quantity, and that was all that was in my range."

Qingfu shook his hand again, gratefully, then offered it hesitantly to Yuy.

Yuy shook it wordlessly.

...well, at least he wasn't swinging yet.

"Bring the passes!" Duo shouted toward a group of men not far off, causing both Qingfu and Jaden to jump. "Set up the lines!"

"My men," the man with Duo's group noted, "are setting up a conference room. I estimate it will be another ten minutes. If you'll...excuse me, President Timorre, I'll go see to that." He shook Qingfu's hand and nodded his head respectfully.

"Of course," Jaden returned quietly, startled. He watched the man turn and walk away, then looked around to Qingfu.

"So, Mr. President," Duo added happily, "we talked Yuy into waiting until this evening to kick your ass."

"How kind," Jaden muttered dryly, looking around to Yuy. "You're not going to put me in the hospital, are you?"

"I'm not sure yet," Yuy returned easily.

"Heero, stop," Quatre snapped, sighing and gesturing behind them.

Matt darted from where he'd been waiting excitedly...with another young man behind him, and...

Qingfu gasped, saluting Lucretzia Noin.

"You outrank me here," she informed him dryly.

"Hi!" Matty latched onto Heero's arm to look between them. "I'm like...happy to see you, but I'm totally _not_ going to stay around alone."

"I'm sorry," Jaden muttered, frowning at him. "I was just...trying to keep you safe."

"We've had this argument before, and it goes nowhere," Duo pointed out.

"I just..." Jaden sighed.

"And if you come _near_ me with handcuffs..." Matt informed Qingfu happily, letting the threat trail off.

"I swear I was only trying to keep you safe," Qingfu noted.

"That's morose," Barton noted pointedly. "This is my boyfriend, Blake Kiardane. Blake, these are President Jaden Timorre and Vice President Rin Qingfu."

The young man saluted them as they both stared at him in confusion, then offered his hand.

"This is my espoused," Chang added, indicating another Asian male who'd been with the younger men. "Wong-Chang Jinli. Jin...this is Rin Qingfu and Jaden Timorre."

"Should we start for the meeting room?" Marquise asked curiously, looking them all over as men started moving out of Illicit.

Jaden watched the gauntlet nervously as his men took their guest passes and put them on—there was a line of E.S.A. soldiers coming off each side of the exit. They created something of a tunnel to the main building...which was most likely filled with other soldiers.

"There's no enmity," Winner reassured them, considering the men himself. "Your soldiers are understandably nervous, but ours are just doing their job. Shall we?"

Jaden hesitated a moment longer, then nodded his head.

"So should I call you Captain, Supreme Ruler, or President?" Matt asked happily, falling into pace with Jaden, still holding Yuy's forearm.

"You can call me Jaden or Timorre," Jaden retorted.

"Qing calls him Den," Duo noted, falling into pace with Qingfu and giving him a knowing sort of amused look.

Qingfu smirked back at him, tucking his hands into his pockets.

He was glad to be back with Duo again—the man kept things entertaining.

* * *

It was vaguely amusing to watch Heero keep himself in check, and Quatre wondered if he was a bad person. There was actual malice in Heero, which the semi-blond couldn't ever remember feeling before, and he wondered if it would go away when Heero finally got to attack the man.

The meeting was interesting enough, but in all reality it had only actually needed Trowa and Duo. The rest of them were there for more...moral support...though Quatre could have thought of twenty better things to set Heero to doing.

"You're awfully quiet," he muttered to the Japanese male quietly.

"I don't have much to say," Heero muttered back, meeting his eyes.

"You shouldn't...attack him," Quatre noted.

"I might not," Heero shrugged. "If he says anything to piss me off, though, all bets are off."

Quatre sighed a bit.

"You intend to take Gerrange out, don't you?" Heero asked skeptically. "What's the difference between what I want to do and what you want to do?"

Quatre almost snapped that Heero wasn't funny, then realized there was a layer of sincerity to the question. He blinked at his friend a moment, then considered the question properly. "Gerrange is dangerous and hurt Duo," he decided finally, noting that Zechs had glanced down at them from his end of the table. "He did it utterly out of spite. Timorre...he hurt Matty in a way, but not...the way...Gerrange did."

"So is there a difference?" Heero asked quietly. "I just want to punch him a few times."

"It's a very slight difference," Quatre agreed with a bit of a rueful grin. "But the main difference is that Matty will be upset, whereas Duo might try and help."

Heero smirked at that.

"Like I said, slight," Quatre agreed, shrugging a bit.

"Anything for us all to discuss, General Winner?"

Quatre looked back to the commander, startled. "Uh, no...excuse us."

The man gave him a wry sort of look, then focused back on Timorre.

* * *

Timorre took a long slow breath as he stopped in the center of a larger intersection, closing his eyes and almost seeming to center himself. Wufei found it odd, and stopped with Rin in confusion.

Heero...had his jacket unbuttoned.

...oh.

Wufei realized that Timorre had known the fight was pending all along. As the meeting had started to obviously wind down, the man had become agitated.

Heero pulled his formal jacket off, swinging it wordlessly around to Wufei.

"Should we...uh...get Matty and them?" Fei hazarded to Duo and Trowa.

"I'd rather he not be here," Timorre noted, turning and stepping back at the same time to face Heero. "What's the actual protocol here? I waive my rights, I know that...but..."

"You might take the first swing," Duo suggested.

Before Wufei could actually realize what the man had said, Timorre had swung...and blow landed solidly on Heero's jaw...and they stopped quibbling.

The term 'highly unorthodox' crossed Wufei's mind as he watched the two men tumble to the floor. 'We're gonna get killed for this,' came up at one point, too...because soldiers were coming up and making noise behind them.

He did not, however, try and intercede.

Heero managed to get a hold on Timorre with one hand...and Timorre was already bloody. Trowa stepped forward, extending one hand...and then _Rin_ was darting into the fight.

That Asian male bowled Heero over sideways, which successfully made _him_ the object of the blood lust.

Timorre rolled out of the way of the combatants, leaving a trail of dripping blood on the floor as Duo moved around quickly to him...and offering the guy his under-shirt.

This would look wonderful when the MP finally showed up to break it up.

There was something surprising in the fact that Rin was holding his own. The beating Timorre had received hadn't more than warmed Heero up.

"_Stand aside!_" an annoyed sounding soldier snarled, moving up and shoving Wufei off. The red-band around the man's arm with the large block letters M.P. stopped the annoyance in its tracks.

"M.P.!" Duo warned at about the same moment.

"_Break it up!_" the man ordered, tearing Heero off of Rin bodily and throwing him against the wall. He stood there a moment to make sure Rin wasn't going to jump up and follow, then rounded on Heero...and probably realized who he was.

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence as the guy realized who they _all_ were.

The rest of the M.P. group had stopped behind Wufei, and were exchanging uncertain looks.

"No fighting...in the halls...sir," the guy muttered to Heero almost uncertainly.

"Hold your authority," Wufei snapped, irked by that. "You alive down there, Rin?"

"Amazingly," Rin agreed, pressing his fingertips to his eyes and almost seeming to writhe a moment. "I'll be good...in a second."

The M.P. looked down at him a moment, then up at Heero. His focus wandered around to Duo uncertainly before looking to Zechs.

"That was...most enlightening," Zechs noted, blinking at the two bleeding men on the ground. Heero had blood on his face, but whatever had been done to him hadn't been enough to start a flow.

"We'll take care of this," Duo advised the M.P. easily. "Yuy...back to your quarters—Timorre, Rin, come with me."

Heero considered the formerly-braided male a moment, pulling away from the wall. He saluted somewhat sullenly, then turned and started to trudge away.

Duo helped Timorre to stand, and they all focused on the M.P. group pointedly.

"Right," the guy muttered, backing away. "Uh...Sir," he saluted...then moved back to his team.

Quatre grinned sidelong at Wufei a moment, then turned to help Rin rise.

They needed to get away before the officers realized they had the command of the halls.

* * *

Matty gasped, jumping to his feet as Duo helped Timorre into Wufei's room. "Are you _okay?_" he muttered, darting into the bathroom and flicking on a faucet before turning and starting to dig into the cupboards.

"I'm...better than I thought I'd be," Timorre returned, pulling Duo's shirt away from his face and seeming to _realize_ what it was. He looked around at all of them before focusing on Duo himself.

"I couldn't give you my _jacket_," Duo retorted, pulling that off.

Quatre smirked at his lover, giving him a look.

Duo sniggered in response, starting back for the door. He hesitated, though, extending an arm out toward Wufei.

Wufei tossed Heero's jacket to him wordlessly, watching the man disappear.

"Iuh..." Timorre tossed the shirt on the floor with a sigh, looking around to Rin—Timorre was sitting at the room's table and Rin had sat on the bed. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," Rin reassured him. "You?"

"Been better—at least I'm not concussed this time."

Rin snorted at that.

"Here," Matty muttered, moving from the bathroom with a rag. "The sink is full if you want that, too."

Timorre blinked up at him, then smiled very slightly before rising to his feet and moving into the bathroom as well.

"What's going on?" Blake asked gesturing back over his shoulder. "Heero showed up with blood on his face and told me to leave him alone." He focused on Rin and blinked.

"Heero was saying he wanted to pound Jaden's face in," Matty noted dryly. "He did it."

Blake blinked a few more times, looking into the bathroom before focusing on Trowa.

"Is there a reason our room is the meeting ground?" Jin muttered curiously to Wufei. "Does that seem weird to you?"

Wufei sniggered back a bit, shrugging. "When we're busy, you hang out in here with Matty and Blake. When we come back, Trowa and Heero join Matty and Blake—that gives us the majority. If it bothers you," he moved over to pick of Duo's shirt from the floor, "hang out in Heero's room."

"I didn't say it bothered me," Jinli retorted, dropping back on the bed. "I just wanted to make sure there was logic."

"And ruin all the fun?" Quatre gave him a skeptical look. "Surely, you jest."

"Why don't you monkeys all go get out of your work clothes?" Jin gave Quatre a look.

Quatre snickered, grabbing the shirt from Wufei as he passed. "Okay fine...I'll be back within five minutes."

Jin snorted.

Wufei grinned, but didn't say anything as the semi-blond disappeared from the room.

* * *

"The thing about this," the mechanic muttered as he kicked the engine of a blow-torch, "is that it's not meant to handle the _big_ jobs."

Rab nodded, considering the partially covered wall that had once been a huge hole. The group of men who'd had the idea for fixing the ship had been maintenance workers on their various colonies, so they had a bit more understanding of what was needed to keep a structure secure in space. They, it seemed, had found a group of guys who'd worked maintenance on suits. During the wars, all MS soldiers had been taught the proper procedure for entering, and surviving, the earth's atmosphere. They had an idea that also included sealing off the rooms affected by the giant hole, so if their outer idea didn't work, the ship wouldn't suffer for it.

It was an interesting notion, and Rab had decided he had faith in them. There was a sheet of shield fluttering in the wind off the ship—they were the atmosphere shields for suits that didn't regularly take the atmospheric plunge.

They'd been working on putting metal plates up—salvaged from the ship they took supplies from—for three days. There was a lattice-work of metal webbing across most of the thing, and the hole was at least halfway covered.

Unfortunately, their welder wasn't working so hot.

"I...suggest we let it rest until it cools," the mechanic added, considering the machine. "Shouldn't take more than twenty minutes...and then," he looked up to the men who'd been working on the thing, "keep an eye on the heat-gauge. If you melt the internals we're out of anything that might possibly be considered luck."

The guys nodded.

Rab sighed, considering the hole, then the time it was taking to clear. Damn Barton, the fool of a usurper...but they didn't have the E.S.A. sniffing their asses...at least so far. He doubted that would last much longer if they'd at all realized he was getting more armed MS...

Rab turned, wandering back up toward the control center. He needed to figure some things out...and that was where everyone knew to find him.

* * *

"Idle hands are the devil's tools," Jaden informed Duo dryly.

Matty snickered, raising his own hands to consider them. "Heero says I'm the devil."

Duo choked on that as Jaden stared blankly at the young man.

Blake started laughing quietly, rocking back in his seat.

"If your hands are the devil," Lu muttered with interest, "then what's with the rest of you?"

Matty started laughing delightedly at that as the others joined in, even Jaden.

"Oh dear," Zechs muttered, stopping in the door with Heero, Trowa, and Qingfu behind him. "We should just...walk away from that laugh."

"Oh, I dunno," Heero muttered, moving around the male to grin at them all. "As far as I've gathered, Matty feels some urge to tell everyone how good I am in bed—that laugh tends to mean he's added to my rep."

Lu started giggling hard.

Trowa rolled his eyes, moving in and leaning over to kiss Blake. "Why aren't they ever laughing like that from you?" he demanded.

"Because you make me swoon," Blake retorted, "and the respect is a whole different level."

Trowa smirked at him.

"I will _never_ get used to that," Zechs noted, moving in and around to sit next to his fianc. "Oh, hey, Trowa had this idea earlier I wanted to run by you."

Trowa guffawed, looking to the floor a moment before straightening and turning to _look_ at the man.

Zechs started snickering.

"I suggested threesome, but he threw that out," Heero noted happily, bouncing a bit as he moved to the pitcher of water on one of the dressers. "Then it occurred to me that someone would be left out—he never answered me on doubles."

Zechs started laughing silently, looking away from the man to shake his head at the woman.

Lu smirked at Heero. "You couldn't handle me."

He smirked wickedly at her. "That's what Matty and Zechs would be for, to finish the job."

Jaden _guffawed_.

Lucretzia started laughing hard, giving her man a look.

Zechs laughed himself, shaking his head.

"I...don't see a problem with that idea," Matty noted happily.

Lu started giggling.

"I wasn't going to repeat _that_ stupid shit," Zechs informed them all pointedly. "_I_ was talking about his wedding idea."

"Wedding idea?" Matty asked, tilting his head and glancing briefly at Blake.

"Yeah, what?" Lu gave Trowa a curious look.

"I just said that if Blake decided to consent," Trowa retorted, "then we'd just run down to the courthouse."

The _look_ Blake gave him was daggers.

Lu mouthed the first part of the statement as she considered it, her mouth lingering on 'consent'...then looked to her fianc.

He smiled innocently at her.

"We are _not_ eloping," she noted very levelly.

"You already have," Wufei noted happily.

Zechs started laughing.

"We had an...interesting...outing," Qingfu noted, moving around to sit properly by Jaden and kiss him briefly. "I think my abs are gonna ache for days from laughing so hard."

Trowa smirked at them, glancing to Heero.

"I don't suppose you did anything...like...i'unno, checking on the ship?" Duo gave them all interested looks.

"_Damn!_" Trowa gestured in consternation. "I _knew_ we forgot something!"

"I _told_ you!" Heero protested. "I said there was something Duo wanted us to do..."

Duo gave them both level looks.

Qingfu snickered, looking back to Jaden. "They found a few minor flaws," he informed the guy. "The water intake is replaced already—that was the first two days. Yesterday they scraped off what barnacles and stuff had stuck to her, and now they're double checking what areas are damaged. They think they'll be done tonight, if not early tomorrow."

"You ruin our good time," Heero informed the man, pouting at me. "We could have got Duo _all_ worked up for nothing."

Zechs snickered.


	10. Ten

A/C: Author FAIL ZOMG! I totally have been having a non work-hour sleeping schedule lately and utterly lost track of time. Sorry guys! Review and let me know what you think, and I'll try and actually write Jokers Wild and get that up sooner than later. lovelove! -kye

**Ten**

"Brigadiers!"

Heero, Duo, Trowa, and Quatre jumped to their feet as Wufei turned from the side-table he'd been at.

"Brigadiers!" the soldier dropped a file of papers onto the table, flattening the thing and glancing at the clipboard a lot more men had taken to carrying since Matty, Blake, and Jinli had started playing with them. "Here!" he indicated a point on the map. "A transport shuttle from Obsidian was flying over the area about five minutes ago—the soldiers there hailed it—it's part of Derringers's Fleet. They hailed the transport and the soldiers on board refused to comply...they shot it down."

Wufei stepped toward him, his expression startled.

"Sirs...it was full of _armed_ M.S..._**armed**_."

Quatre looked to Duo in disbelief.

"They sent in an immediate salvage team to check for survivors...there were three men on it, and only one was critically injured. They have them in the medical ward under guard...but...the suits..."

"How did he get armed suits?" Duo muttered, turning to look to Quatre in amazement.

"I don't know," Quatre muttered, widening his eyes. "But they noted several other transports heading back toward Obsidian...do you think?"

"God, I hope not," Duo dropped into a seat as he considered the ramifications. It wasn't the first time they'd heard of the transports heading back to that ship.

"Which suits?" Quatre muttered to the guy.

He looked almost like he'd salute as he set the clipboard down and started flipping through options. "Uh...it looks like...mainly Aries, sir," the guy returned.

"But that's only _one_ of those transports," Duo noted quietly.

"We have the gundams and Demigod for a reason," Heero noted quietly.

"Should...I get Sandrock?" Quatre looked uncertainly to Wufei.

"No," Wufei and Heero said in unison.

"Sandrock was too...alive...to be safe," Heero reminded him. "Zero was fucked up beyond belief, but Sandrock..."

Quatre pressed a knuckle to his lips.

"We should...destroy them," Duo said quietly, not looking at either male. "Sandrock and Zero...should never have been made like that."

Heero nodded, his lips pursed, but Quatre looked away.

"What do we do with the suits?" the runner muttered quietly, his expression somber.

"Unarm them...destroy them?" Heero looked to the others, the statements more a question.

"If Gerrange has armed MS," Duo countered quietly, "we might _need_ them. I can do some damage with Deathscythe, and Tro with Heavyarms...but we were having issues with Demigod in our midst." He looked around to them all. "We're not even sure those suits weren't salvaged by _them_."

Heero rubbed at his face, and they all focused on Wufei and Trowa.

Wufei looked away from them. "I'm not good at these decisions. Every time I make one I'm wrong—look at Marimea."

Trowa studied Wufei a long moment, then looked to the rest again...and nodded once. "Wipe the programming," he ordered the soldier quietly. "Wipe it and reboot it from our systems—make sure the information wasn't tampered with before we reset the system, too. If it was, find one that's old."

The soldier looked around at them all a long moment. "It's a real war then, isn't it?"

"It's been a real war playing on silent since the beginning," Trowa agreed. "As soon as Gerrange made his first move, he declared this a war...we've only been playing capture-the-flag so far...but I guess it's time to stop the kiddy shit," he looked out the window a long moment in silence, then nodded sharply at the soldier. "You have your orders."

"Sir," the guy muttered, saluting him smartly before directing the respect to the other men...and disappeared.

* * *

"Rab!"

Rab turned to look at the alarmed soldier who came spilling onto the landing to salute him.

"Sir! There are ships moving in! Not _ours!_"

"Took them long enough," he muttered, turning to look at the contingent of MS that had made it in over the last day—one of the transports had been destroyed when it flew too close to an E.S.A. fleet. Obsidian had been in quiet mourning since the transport's communication had crackled out of life. There was no news if the men had survived, and with how the E.S.A. worked, they'd probably salvaged the ship and found the MS.

It really _had_ taken them long enough. They'd given him five or six days to repair his ship and recollect his soldiers.

Maybe they wanted to fight just as badly as he did.

"Go check if the repair team is done," Rab ordered the man, starting for the bridge. "I want this battle in space as soon as we can get it there."

"Sir!" the guy saluted him and disappeared.

Rab ran a hand through his hair, then smiled grimly.

He wished he could have _seen_ the look on Winner's face when they'd found out about the suits. He wished he'd had someone inside to see how they'd all reacted. ...it was almost too bad J had ditched out on him, he'd have appreciated that humor. Deroy, too.

He put the matter aside as he swept up the final set of stairs and threw the door open to look at the men who'd been scrambling around. "They're finally taking me seriously," he noted conversationally. "It's about damn time."

* * *

"All the ships are reporting the same thing," Trowa noted quietly as he stood on the deck of the flag ship of Derringer's Fleet. "Minimal resistance. The transport we took out is the only ship, though, that hadn't returned. That's more than thirty-five suits if the other ships returning _weren't_ full of suits."

"And if they were...there could be a hundred on his ship," Quatre noted, rubbing at his eyes. "We were having issues with _eight_. Why were we having issues with _eight?_"

"That was just a warm-up, Quatre," Wufei noted with a wicked grin. "I can do some _damage_ with that whip, too."

Quatre looked at him.

"We have an army, we have at least three ships that are pre-armed, and at least a dozen more that are ready to be armed when we find the old weaponry." He shook his head, giving Duo a look. "And you were happy they disbanded the Preventers."

Duo gave him a look.

"I doubt we're dealing with more than seventy. It's probably fifty, if you remember how many suits Gerrange let fall to ruin in L.A."

"We should have foreseen this," Wufei noted pointedly. "I know other officers made the conjectures, and we weren't paying them mind much at all. We were being nave, so now instead of us implementing a plan of our origin, we have to implement one someone else thought of."

They all nodded glumly at that.

"It's our own fault," Heero muttered tiredly, running a hand through his hair. "We did it to ourselves."

"We were so sure we knew what Gerrange was capable of," Quatre noted in vague amusement. He looked up, meeting all their eyes. "We got complacent."

That made them all give him sour looks and nod their agreement.

"We need to get back to the base and find a plan," Wufei noted, shoving himself up to look out the windows at the calm ocean. The sky was a brilliant blue and the waves were calm...it was a beautiful day to be at sea.

"Let's go," Duo agreed, shoving himself up and offering a hand to Heero. "Something tells me that our quiet little war just exploded."

"Yeah," Trowa muttered, moving to stare out the window himself. "We fucked up, didn't we?"

"Let's not admit that to anyone," Duo suggested pointedly, considering the man. "We can leave it in the dust with you courting Lifon and Wufei becoming an alcoholic."

Trowa and Wufei made faces at him, moving to follow.

Duo made an amused noise.

"What?" Heero asked curiously.

"I'm not there," Duo smirked at him. "Remember? We had like...six months or whatever to build that house? I haven't been there at all. I wonder if Reg is pissed at me."

Heero started snickering.

* * *

"So we're ready to head out?" Timorre muttered curiously to Heero, looking around at the group of men. "Most of my soldiers are on board."

"Good," Heero muttered, moving past him to board Illicit.

"What is he doing?" Timorre asked Trowa blankly.

"I have no idea," Trowa noted, shrugging and following the man.

Timorre looked to Matty uncertainly.

"I haven't been told more than that shit got serious," the youth noted with Blake a step behind him. Jinli was standing near them, his lips pursed.

"I suppose...Captain," Duo noted, looking back to salute Timorre, "I should ask permission for our lot to board."

Timorre grinned at him and nodded. "By all means, it's a retroactive invitation to five minutes ago."

"Wonderful, _you_ think you're clever, too," Quatre noted, bouncing up the entryway.

Timorre gave Matty a look.

Matty smirked back at him, moving to follow the mostly-blond wordlessly.

Trowa watched as Blake hesitated to glance at him, then turned and followed as well.

"So what's up?" Timorre asked curiously, moving to fall in with Duo and Trowa. Wufei and Jinli followed them.

"We overlooked that Gerrange isn't an entire idiot," Wufei admitted dryly. "So now we have a general's plan from over in Brazil to enact, and none of us are overly pleased by it."

"How many suits do you have?" Heero asked sharply from where he was at the intersection.

"You're utterly charming," Matty noted dryly. "Now I remember why I fell in love with you."

Heero snickered, turning to kiss him very quickly.

Blake and Matty smirked at each other.

"Uh...three," Timorre returned, tilting his head. "Why?"

"Because Gerrange has at least thirty."

Timorre stopped, blinking at him.

"Armed," Heero agreed, studying the other man curiously.

"How did he get armed MS?" Timorre asked, looking around to Trowa and Duo in disbelief.

"We were hoping you knew," Wufei noted, moving around.

"For all that Rab considered me his second, he didn't bother telling me a lot," Timorre considered them all a moment, then gestured. "We should go somewhere more comfortable to talk. Hold on." He moved over to the screen on the wall and typed in the code for his room.

"Hey, what's up?" Qing asked happily, drying his hair with a towel and stopping as he realized they were all with him. "Uh...the council-room?"

Timorre nodded.

"Right...I'll be there in a few," the screen went blank.

"So what do you know about his plans?" Quatre asked curiously. "You defected with him."

Timorre considered the guy a long moment and shrugged. "I was brought into that shit more than planned it with him. We would hang out, and they all started planning. I was there, so I had to join or I'd probably have been in some sort of tragic accident. I don't know if Rab could tell I wasn't all-in on it, or if he was just manipulating everyone around him. No one knew his whole network, all we knew is that he only had a few men in a lot of places. I knew he had like...two...suits, and he used those fighting with you lot in L.A.."

"You knew he had Wing?" Heero snapped.

Timorre shrugged. "I also know that the machine wasn't repaired all that well."

Heero made a noise.

"But even with the notion of him _having_ MS...I didn't think they were _armed_," he made a face, glancing sidelong at Quatre...and stopping. He blinked a few times, then _focused_ on the man.

Quatre smirked at him and shrugged to the others. "He hasn't been lying."

"Fucker," Timorre accused.

"We use what resources we have," Duo reassured him as they turned into a larger room. "So now we discuss how to go about getting you a few more armed MS."

"Really?" Timorre blinked at him, then frowned. "Wait...that...you'll make me pay for them, won't you?"

Duo shrugged, dropping into the end-seat nearest the exit as he looked to the man.

Timorre sighed, looking up to the ceiling, then closed his eyes and moved over to the vid-panel in the room. He opened a program and typed up a few lines of numbers...and clicked something.

Several smaller screens split up the thing, and a woman answered instantly. "Supreme?"

"Hold on," Timorre suggested.

"Jaden?" Hoxha asked, appearing on the second screen. "What's with the split?"

"Hold on," Timorre repeated.

It took a few moments before all the screens were lighted, each person greeting him with either President, Supreme, or Captain.

"The Brigadier Generals are present in the council room," he noted almost formally to them all. "We're to discuss the current state of the war."

That made everyone pause.

"We'll be there," the woman noted, her screen blanking out...it took a moment before they all turned black.

Timorre cleared the board, rubbing a hand to his face as Qingfu moved quickly into the room and saluted the Brigadiers as he passed his captain.

"Take a seat, Qing," Duo suggested as the others moved around to sit as well. "We have real business to discuss."

"Well," Qingfu muttered, sitting in the right-hand chair at the other end of the table. "That sounds foreboding."

* * *

"So we've got enough to arm twenty suits," the soldier noted happily to Duo, hitting the side of a large cargo-box. "They were all checked out before they got here. How many of these lovelies are we putting on Illicit?"

"Six," Duo returned, rubbing his hands together as he considered the box. "Or eight, I forget what was finally decided on. The second shipment should come in this evening—the one from Cape Town."

"Awesome," the guy muttered, passing the clipboard to Duo. "Sign that, please," he passed the stylus over.

Duo considered the electronic thing a long moment, then rolled his eyes and scrawled his signature.

"What?" the guy asked curiously, taking the things back.

"Williams-Yuy, Kiardane, and Wong-Chang brought these back into popularity around here by _playing_ with them," Duo explained dryly.

The guy grinned at him.

Duo pulled out his phone, moving off to the side as the guy started yelling orders at his crew.

"Den's phone, Qing speaking. I can't get laid if you call him away."

Jaden started laughing in the background. "Give me that," he muttered, sounding muffled. "Sorry...uh...Maxwell?"

"I'd hope he wouldn't answer like that to just anyone," Duo noted dryly. "I didn't hear the final outcome. Six or eight?"

"Oh, the weapons are in? Uh...we decided on eight."

"Alright, go back to the sex thing," Duo ordered, closing his phone as the man started laughing.

"Well?" the soldier asked, turning back to him.

Duo grinned happily at him. "Eight. That's the transport," he indicated the large flat-bed that had pulled up off to their right.

"Alright," the guy saluted him, then clambered away over the boxes.

Duo considered the pile of weaponry happily, then turned and made his way back down the bit of the pile he was on. The man had been on his way to the floor, but Duo hadn't gotten to climb any sort of cargo mountain in years, so he'd moved up to join the other.

"Do you feel better now?" Quatre asked, moving out from the dock area.

"Yeah, actually," Duo grinned as he hopped off the stuff. "They're gonna take Den's stuff over to him," he indicated the flat-bed. "Let's go get him the rest of his MS."

Quatre nodded, turning to follow him happily.

* * *

"You know how to mount the weapons, don't you?" Heero asked tiredly as he tried to balance a pencil on end—they were in the council room of Illicit again, but this time it was only them. It had been mostly social, starting with them acknowledging the weaponry shipment.

"Not really, but I have guys," Jaden shrugged.

Matty snorted at him.

Jaden gave the guy a look.

"I'm here!" Blake bounced happily into the room with Heero and Trowa's laptops in his arms...and...two more.

Matty blinked at that.

"These were in the rooms," Blake explained, passing Matty one...that had his name graphed on it like Lifon's, only not metallic.

It was blue-glittery.

Matty started giggling.

Jaden blinked at the machine in amusement, then looked up to Matty with interest.

"They came already?" Heero asked, dropping the pencil as he blinked at the guy.

"If they already have your programming on them, I'm going to smack you," Blake informed him dryly, dropping into the chair next to the other young man. His was orange with his name printed in a golden sort of metallic.

"What?" Jaden asked blankly, looking between the machines.

Heero sniggered a bit, leaning over and kissing Matty...as he detached something from the bottom.

"A board!" Matty squeaked, absolutely jumping out of his seat to pounce Heero.

"Aww, they found them already?" Trowa moved into the room with Qingfu. "I wanted to be there!"

"I sent Blake to get ours," Heero admitted, gesturing at the pair. "He found them."

"Damn," Trowa sighed, moving over to kiss Blake and touch the top of the thing. "What do you think?"

"I like it," Blake muttered, smiling up at him.

"Why don't you get me awesome-ass laptops out of nowhere?" Qingfu asked Jaden in a pouty tone.

"Because I can't afford them," Jaden retorted, giving him a look.

"I got you a good one," Duo protested, moving in from the hall. "Why are you pouting?"

"Because theirs are shiny," Qingfu indicated t blue glitter and the gold metallic.

Duo snickered, glancing back to Matty. "You have Li's nail-polish?"

Matty started giggling again, pulling his phone out to show Qingfu.

"What's...with the blue glitter?" Qingfu asked blankly. "Or do I want to know?"

Matty snickered. "It matches Heero's car."

Jaden and Qingfu both gave him very exasperated looks.

"Alright," Wufei muttered, moving into the room with a duffel over his shoulder. "I got our shit."

"What?" Heero asked blankly, looking back to him.

"Jaden noted he doesn't know how to mount the weapons," Trowa explained. "I figured we should just stay the night and call it good," he shrugged. "Shower in the morning and head back to the main base. A little semi-vacation where we don't have to be officers."

"I think I'm flattered," Jaden noted thoughtfully.

"I got a laptop," Jinli muttered, moving into the room with a curious expression on his face and a green machine in his hands. "Who got me a laptop?"

"I did," Wufei retorted. "It has a removable board on the bottom, too. That way you guys don't have to carry around the old clunky electric clipboards...we ordered them the other night. I put your shit on them," he added to Heero. "The ones I had on my machine, anyway."

"I have a laptop back home," Jin muttered with a frown to Wufei.

"It's outdated and these were on sale," Wufei retorted, then smirked at him. "I gotta treat my man right."

Jinli gave him a _look_.

Wufei laughed, moving around to set his own laptop down, then looked skeptically to the younger men. "Why aren't they on yet?"

Matty squeaked, pulling away from his kiss with Heero to focus on the machine—specifically on reattaching the board.

"I was enjoying that," Heero informed Wufei.

"Yes, that's why I distracted him."

Heero tossed the pencil at him.

"Open it," Trowa suggested.

Blake smiled up at him cutely, opening the machine and hitting the power button. It whirred to life...and a large picture of a very orange frog looked back at them. It was the same picture he'd set as the background on Trowa's laptop.

Trowa guffawed.

Wufei laughed a bit, glancing at it and winking at Blake.

Blake sniggered, pulling the board off the bottom...and absolutely _giggling_ as the image of the frog was displayed inside the clear board.

"It can go 3D, too," Wufei informed him happily.

"What the hell were you _doing_ all morning?" Trowa asked Wufei blankly.

"Playing," Wufei returned, blinking at him. "Obviously," he indicated the frog as it showed up in the air over the board and Blake giggled more.

Matty, meanwhile, had flicked his laptop on as well...to show one of _his_ shots of a sort of blue frog.

Wufei grinned at the young men, looking around as he realized that he was being stared at. "What?"

Jinli started laughing _wickedly_, slamming his laptop closed.

Wufei started laughing delightedly, looking to his friend. "Show them your 3D. I'm sure _everyone_ in here would appreciate _**that**_."

* * *

It was later in the morning than they'd been waking up when Trowa opened his eyes. He blinked around the room blankly a moment, realizing belatedly that they were on Illicit. They'd spent most of the night mounting some of the weapons on the MS. It would probably three days to get them all set up, but that was fine because the teams on the base had already mounted the ones they'd been sent.

The engine was whirring.

Trowa frowned, climbing over Blake to find his clothing.

"Huh?" Blake muttered, rolling onto his back to look around. "Where..." he hesitated. "What is that sound?"

"The engine," Trowa explained. "I don't know _why_ they're starting the ship."

There was a pounding on the door.

Trowa moved over and threw it open as Heero stumbled into the room to look between them in disbelief. "He took off!"

"What?" Trowa asked. "He who? What's going on?"

"Gerrange," Matty explained, moving into the room as well. He ran a hand through his hair...as the ship _lurched_.

"_Everyone_," Jaden's voice came over the room's loud-speakers as the man himself appeared on the room's vid-screen. "Hold on!"

"Jaden!" Trowa protested, grabbing ahold of the edge of the screen as Heero shoved Matty at the bed.

The image on the screen looked away as Trowa realized it was a one-way message.

"Hey!" Matty protested at Heero...as the thrusters kicked in.

Trowa and Heero were both thrown to the floor as the machine took off almost straight-up, and Matty dropped onto the bed next to Blake in disbelief as Wufei started cursing vehemently in Chinese from his room.

"Sorry," Jaden muttered, looking back to the screen. "Everyone was on board...and Gerrange is launching—the fool did a patch-job on Obsidian and is going to try the atmosphere."

"Our _suits!_" Trowa snapped, bracing himself against the floor as their direction changed a bit.

Blake was cursing.

"I have to sit," Jaden noted...and the screen went black.

"_Damn_ it," they heard Duo snarl.

"Wait," Blake called in disbelief. "We're going _into_ _**space**_?"

"You've never been, huh?" Matty muttered in vague amusement.

"We're readying the atmosphere charge," Qingfu noted as the ship's momentum lessened some. "If you can, get to a bed or a chair."

Trowa snarled, yanking Heero from the floor after him toward the bed. Blake moved toward the wall, but Trowa rolled over him and pulled the blankets around behind him.

"Hey!" Blake protested—which when the others realized he was naked.

"Things might get warm," Trowa retorted, leaning over and grabbing the guy's boxers. "Lay down, I think," he added, pulling Blake toward him.

"In three...two..." Qingfu wasn't watching the screen...and disappeared much like Jaden had.

The _sound_ of the thrust was loud all around them, and they were pressed to the bed.

"Holy _**shit**_!"

* * *

"You totally just kidnapped five brigadier generals and their spouses," Duo informed Jaden pointedly as he moved into the bridge.

"Sorry," Jaden muttered, frowning slightly at them. "I forgot you were here until we were already in the atmosphere...I...we'll send a transport back to Earth with you when we're stable up here."

Heero sighed, running a hand through his hair.

"I really am sorry," Jaden persisted, moving closer to them. "I...suppose this has to look bad."

"You kidnapping us?" Trowa asked happily. "It looks horrible," he moved past the man toward the wall of windows—the wall was a series of windows. "Where are we?"

"In space," Heero noted dryly, looking back toward the blue jewel of earth. He sighed, moving to look out the window, then moved to the vid on the wall. "How do you call a room?"

"There's a room call button," Jaden said quickly, moving over to him. "Do you know your room numbers?"

"1036," Qingfu called from where he was at a console on the far side of the room. "Barton is 1024."

Jaden typed the numbers in quickly, hitting the send.

Heero considered how angry he was at the man a brief moment—he could have gone for a kidney shot from their position, but realized almost belatedly that it was Jaden's ship.

Navy rules. His ship, his law.

"Yeah?" Matty asked, looking almost nervous.

"Hey, you should come up here," Heero muttered. "It's got a..." the bottom half of the screen came on and Blake was looking at him.

"Matty! Heero!" Blake bounced. "It's all black out the window!"

"Come up here," Heero suggested. "You'll like the view."

Blake agreed instantly, hitting the button and disappearing.

"We'll be a minute," Matty noted, also disappearing.

"Can this do all rooms?" Heero asked, considering the commands available.

"With the command code," Jaden agreed, moving out of his way. "It's 429."

He blinked at the guy.

"Half the ship know it," Jaden noted, then licked his lips almost nervously. "Everyone knows not to abuse it," he explained. "We...all kind of mutually respect each other, you know?"

Heero conceded with a shrug.

"You kidnapped me again, asshole!" Matty bounced into the room a few minutes later with a couple soldiers trying to protest on his and Blake's heels. He bounced across the room to smack Jaden...but noticed his friend, who'd stopped entirely.

"This way, kid," a soldier started, grabbing Blake's arm.

"They're the significant others of the brigadiers," Jaden informed the man. "They have free run of the ship."

"All right," the guy muttered, saluting him and glancing out the window. He snirked a little as he realized what had stopped the youth, then disappeared again.

"Come here," Trowa suggested, extending his arm for his boyfriend.

Heero moved up behind Matty, pushing him to get the full view from the window as well.

"Whoa," Blake whispered, leaning into Trowa as he considered the blue jewel with the white striping of clouds.

Trowa made a slightly amused noise, squeezing him slightly. "Yeah," he agreed. "Whoa."

.

_**End**_


End file.
